


A Little Irony

by bukkunkun



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Cecil is Inhuman, Confessions, Desert Bluffs wheeeee, Headcanon, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Premature Ejaculation, Science Experiments, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, lots of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:03:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bukkunkun/pseuds/bukkunkun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Do you wanna know</i><br/>A little irony about me </p><p>  <i>I don't know if I should say</i><br/>This little irony about me </p><p>  <i>But it's funny because love was just a feeling</i><br/>Irrelevant before today</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> Bases very heavily on [this headcanon](http://bk-bukkun.tumblr.com/post/57970309578/a-headcanon-regarding-night-vale-and-desert-bluffs) of mine. Diego is completely mine, thank you. Song title taken from the weather, by Tom Milsom.
> 
> ALSO BECAUSE KEVIN AND DESERT BLUFFS DESERVE LOVE TOO OK IT'S REALLY NOT CREEPY HERE I S2G
> 
> and this time i'm not going to announce how long this is because we all know how that went back in Marry You, ugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: GODDAMNIT EPISODE 33

“Listeners, guess who called me this weekend. Well, hey, I don’t like to talk too much about my personal life here. This is _your_ community news station, not Cecil’s—”

The young man groaned, glaring at the radio, and his hand immediately darted out to wrench its dial off.

“What’s the matter?” a bored voice asked, not even looking up from the newspaper he held in his hands as the scent of coffee and nicotine filled the air, burning toast and bubbling molten sunshine-yellow butter tainted with the smell of smoke. “We were told to watch over Night Vale, Dr. Montez. Turn that radio back on, or so help me.”

“He’s going to—”

“ _Turn it on_.”

The young man glared at his boss, still not looking at him past the newspaper and turned the radio on again.

“ _Carloooos!_ ”

“Dear God,” he groaned, reaching for his coffee and downing it in one go, ignoring the burn down his throat from the heat emanating from the hot drink. “Sir, I did _not_ become a biomedical engineer to just listen to a radio host that doesn’t even do his job.”

“Quiet,” his boss snapped at him, “This is for our research at Sector 43.”

The younger scientist grumbled, and shook his head, turning his head to face the radio, a grimace crossing his face as he listened to Night Vale’s radio host— _Subject 34_ , they had called him on his first day he heard about the radio host.

Doctor Diego Montez started off young—he was only 27 when he arrived at StrexCorp, and he rose through their ranks fairly quickly. He took great pride in everything he had done that past year, breezing through position after position in the scientific team the mega-company.

 _Much_ faster than his cousin (first, twice-removed) Carlos, who, coincidentally, is the very same man Cecil Palmer is gushing over in his radio show, but somehow, _infuriatingly_ , he was still the man sent out by the government to research Night Vale (Sector 43, _wow_ , what a _secret_ name, he had thought sarcastically) out in the field.

He tuned out Cecil’s talk. At least, he thought, he took comfort in the fact that the very subject their division in Strex was _gushing_ all over him like this. Served the bastard right to get an extra weight on his shoulders.

“Dr. Montez?”

Diego’s head snapped up faster than he would have liked it, and the intern holding up the folder let out a squeak, but that folder immediately told him what he wanted to hear.

“Yes?” he asked, a little breathless.

“You’re cleared for field work.” They weakly replied, sliding the folder over to him across the table.

His boss made no move as he opened the file, the intern scurrying away and leaving the door ajar behind them, too desperate to escape to care.

His eyes widened.

Well, _this_ was unexpected.

Finally, his boss lowered his newspaper and smirked at him.

“I hope you have waterproof boots and an iron stomach,” he snidely told him, as Diego slowly stood up and made his way to the door.

Laughing, he kicked his feet up on his desk, ignoring Diego’s look of disgust at him before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Desert Bluffs. Ha! Good luck,” he scoffed, as he listened in to Cecil’s voice again.

* * *

He was sitting in his own lab in what he believed to be the cleanest place in the entirety of the entire town when he decided to listen in the radio. Shrugging off his Strex lab coat, he threw it over his chair as he sat down on a bean bag he had dragged down from upstairs heavily. He flicked the dial on the radio on, as he pulled out his phone to open his Facebook page.

It was odd at how _fast_ he got over all the blood and gore that littered the streets, and the walls, and furnishings of the townspeople there. Sure, it was a strange choice of furnishing, but for some reason, he didn’t mind—he had seen _many_ things in Strex labs, abominations he himself had created in test tubes he fought and murdered himself, what was Desert Bluffs’ look any different?

He smirked to himself. So _that’s_ probably why he got sent here instead of Carlos.

“We have a new resident, Desert Bluffs, and I’m _sure_ he’ll be swell,” he heard Kevin’s voice over the radio, and Diego raised an eyebrow.

Already? Wow, he really _was_ Cecil’s clone, wasn’t he?

“StrexCorp called a public forum today on behalf of our new friend, Desert Bluffs. He-um-he, _the scientist_ , I mean, he,” the radio broadcaster stuttered, and this made Diego lower his phone, eyebrows rising.

Odd. Cecil wasn’t like this when Carlos came to Night Vale.

“He, Desert Bluffs, had a strong—yes, _strong_ jaw, and… and his teeth, like a—like Gradma Josephine’s picket fence.” Kevin’s voice grew less peppy and quieter, shyer, as he kept talking about him, and at this Diego’s lips turned up into an interested smirk.

How interesting.

“His hair, his hair, Desert Bluffs,” he swallowed, a necktie rustling in the background audible, and a little thump made it clear to Diego the radio broadcaster knocked his wrist into the cover. “I-It was _wonderful_ , and we all _love_ and _relish_ that wonderful man’s hair in—oh, I’m so sorry, Desert Bluffs,” a little quiet, nervous laugh escaped the man’s on the radio, and somehow an amused laugh bubbled past Diego’s smirking lips. “D-did I mention Grandma Josephine brought such a lovely carrot cake to the forum, and it was _delightful_!”

Topic changing—the announcer was _nervous_. How _cute_.

For a test tube experiment, at least.

“StrexCorp told us that Diego came to our humble desert community because we were such a nice little place for science to happen! Isn’t that wonderful, Desert Bluffs?”

“Yeah, right,” the young man scoffed, sitting back in his bean bag, tangling his fingers into his long, black curls, and silently wondered when he could get them cut. He was starting to look like his cousin, at this rate, sans the white at his temples, perhaps.

“He made a little strange face—a strange sort of half-smile, maybe, and everything about him was wonderful.”

Diego froze, and he turned to look at the radio, wide-eyed, as if it was Kevin himself who was sitting there, talking to him, about him.

“And to be honest, Desert Bluffs, if I may say so myself, I… I fell… in love, instantly.”

That little twitch in Diego’s hands made him drop his phone, but that really was it, really—nothing more.

That premature ventricular contraction that ripped through his sinoatrial node and through his atriums and ventricles was simply nature’s mistake.


	2. Field Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The denizens of Desert Bluffs were all made of interesting stuff. Wounds never coagulated, but their blood was 57.92% denser than his (normal) blood, and their red blood cells ran on an eight-subunit Hemoglobin derivative. There were all sorts of other strange and wonderful things going on with all the people in this town, it was more than anything Diego could dream of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of a double-chapter release, because DESERT BLUFFS NEED LOVE OK
> 
> ALSO DIEGO IS AN ASSHOLE AND I'M PROUD OF THAT, YES.

“Oh, Diego! You’re here again!” Kevin’s wide smile was something a little disconcerting to see in the middle of the bloodstained room, but the scientist paid it no mind as he nodded, and stepped into the ruined booth. “I’m sorry, I’m not done yet; I’ll be out in a bit, and don’t worry! I’ll—I’ll remind Desert Bluffs about science again.” He giggled a little, embarrassed, a pale yellow tint blossoming on his cheeks.

“Thanks,” Diego replied, curtly, and he pretended not to see Kevin’s face brightening up. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Desert Bluffs, you won’t believe who called me just last night—oh, but I guess you smart listeners already would have guessed who it is— _Diego_!”

He stepped back outside, chuckling fondly, into the corridor covered with blood and gore, running his ungloved hand along the wall, and pondered on the sheets of human skin serving as wallpaper.

The purging team (“ _Management_ ,” he had laughed about it, but Kevin seemed adamant on keeping away from the strange figures that always hid in the management’s office. He knew what they really were, of course, but seeing Kevin’s expression was rather amusing— _cute_ , even, but he didn’t dare say that out loud) had a rather morbid sense of humour, he thought as he rubbed the tips of his fingers together, inspecting the half-dry-half-mucous substance on his fingers that had mixed with the blood on the wall.

The denizens of Desert Bluffs were all made of interesting stuff. Wounds never coagulated, but their blood was 57.92% denser than his (normal) blood, and their red blood cells ran on an eight-subunit Hemoglobin derivative. There were all sorts of other strange and wonderful things going on with all the people in this town, it was more than anything Diego could dream of.

If anything, after all, it was a dream come true—and so much more. It was an experimental biologist’s paradise.

Setting aside the… unorthodox methods of furnishing and the disconcertingly ever-positive attitude of virtually everyone in Desert Bluffs.

“Remember, Desert Bluffs, science is what makes you—a reminder from our dear Die—oh, I mean,” at this a little chuckle escaped Diego’s lips, “StrexCorp.”

He turned to watch Kevin finish off his broadcast, careful not to lean on anything on the wall. He had just had his lab coat cleaned; he was _not_ scrubbing out bloodstains that weren’t quite blood off his clothes again. In the distance, in the direction of the men’s bathroom, he could hear Anirudra the station dog—well, _coyote_ —wolfing down what sounded like yet another hapless intern laughing brightly as their bones were being crunched by the wild dog.

He winced, when he heard the laughter abruptly cease.  

“Until next time, Desert Bluffs. Until next time.”

Diego silently watched Kevin pack up his things—fix intestine-wires and turn viscera knobs and flick metacarpal switches off, before turning to face Diego, a little shy smile on his face, and a brighter flush of yellow on his face.

Silently, Diego was thankful at least Kevin didn’t have a third eye, or moving tattoos, as his cousin had reported to him once (quite happily, he noted, but that was hardly anything to base anything on), and despite the yellow blushing and the blood and gore around him, Kevin actually looked rather lovely.

Of course, Diego had no one but his mind listening to him.

“I’m sorry for making you wait, Diego,” Kevin apologised; his tone soft, and shy, as he sort-of shuffled towards him. “I still had to pack up—I just received a memo from Management that our intern Brittany had picked up a new career and left the station. I’m really happy for her; I hope she finds herself well.” He smiled, and Diego could only offer a half-smile, half-grimace, still thinking about the rather brutal death he just overheard not too long ago.

The perception filter installed in each Desert Bluffs citizen’s minds work _spectacularly_ , as always, he noted mentally.

“D-Diego, if I may say so,” Kevin spoke up, “Your shirt fits you very well—I, I really like it on you.”

Today’s shirt was stained with blood from an earlier purging of a tiny batch of liberals. A crooked smirk crossed Diego’s face and he swore he could see Kevin’s blush deepen.

“Thanks.” He replied simply, before gesturing down the corridor. “Come on, let’s go get some coffee.”

“R-right, of course,” Kevin nodded, and followed after him into the desert sunlight.

The coffee, as always, was served bitterly cold and seasoned with salt and talcum powder, mixed with what looked suspiciously like goat blood and baby tears.

Diego ordered a glass of ice, and he absently waited for it to melt as he watched Kevin add two cubes of sugar into his mug of coffee.

“S-so, what science topic are we going to talk about today?” Kevin asked, still tripping over his words, something he never did on-air, and Diego took great pride in thinking that it was _he_ who caused it. “What mystery needs to be explored?”

“Nothing,” Diego replied smoothly, “I just wanted to check up on you.”

At this, he could practically see Kevin _glowing_ yellow with happiness.

“Oh, wow, really?” Kevin breathed, leaning back in his seat, clutching the fluorescent blue and purple mug close to himself, lips pressing against the rim to sip at the coffee for lack of anything to cover up his embarrassment. “I-I’m fine, really, just, uh,”

“Any headaches? Nosebleeds?”

“Yesterday,” Kevin replied, almost automatically. “Wow, it’s like as if you know when I get sick, Diego.” He smiled shyly, “A-ah, not that I’m implying anything, of course…” he trailed off, unsure on what to say next as he put down his mug, pouting slightly.

Diego tried not to think at how cute it looked on Kevin.

“It’s okay,” Diego replied, reaching forward to grasp the man’s hand in his, and he heard that undignified little squeak that escaped the broadcaster’s lips. He flashed Kevin a private, knowing smirk. “I just had a hunch. It’s why I called you.”

Kevin blushed a sunny yellow, and went back to sipping his drink, as Diego took out a little notebook.

‘ _Blood reaction to purging – still the town_.’


	3. 3A - Conflict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sandstorm wasn’t something Diego had completely expected, and the scientists had a field day watching the people of Desert Bluffs interact with their suddenly-appearing doubles—murdering each other brutally, left and right, bathing the already-red streets with even more blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i come back from a ghost-infested guesthouse for 4 days to write gore
> 
> i love you all and please tell me you hate diego thank
> 
> because he's an asshole

The sandstorm wasn’t something Diego had completely expected, and the scientists had a field day watching the people of Desert Bluffs interact with their suddenly-appearing doubles—murdering each other brutally, left and right, bathing the already-red streets with even more blood.

He had been told not to leave his apartment and lab—it was ‘ _dangerous_ ’ for him, his superiors had told him, and a phone call from a rather frantic Carlos all the way in Night Vale told him the exact same thing.

He had snorted, shaking the notion off, and he reached outside, a jar in his hand, to take a sample of the sand in the air, just to see the stuff it was made of.

What he _didn’t_ expect, however, was his radio suddenly turning on behind him when he closed the window again, the sound of Kevin’s happy voice filling the air as he slowly turned around, dread filling his senses.

“ _… Now, I can’t imagine why in such a beautiful town with so many kinds of yoghurt stores and pony-petting stations anyone would want to fight his neighbour._ ”

His eyes widened upon seeing an exact double of himself smirking at him as it stood next to the radio, fingers that looked exactly like his on the dials of the radio.

“He has such a cute voice, don’t you think?” his doppelganger asked with a voice exactly like his, his grin slowly turning maniacal as hands slowly, carefully lifted up threateningly. “It’d be nice to hear it all the time.”

“Who are you?” Diego demanded, pulling out his pocket knife from his lab coat, his expression darkening and his eyes narrowing at the doppelganger.

“You, except, I’m not really you.” The man replied, “You should have listened to your dear little Kevin.”

“What I have with him is none of your business,” Diego snapped, and quickly, before his double could even react, he lunged forward and rammed the blade of his knife into his double’s neck, grimacing as he saw the traditional Desert Bluffs blood ooze out like thick goo from the wound he created, bright red blood spurting weakly in his direction as he turned the blade brutally.

His double grabbed him by his hair ( _goddamn it_ , Diego, he chastised himself mentally, get it cut already—Kevin saying it looks great does _nothing_ to help you) and pulled him away from himself bodily, throwing him onto the ground.

Diego landed on his back with a loud thud, the wind knocked out of his lungs, and he choked on air caught in his throat as he watched his double yank the knife out of his neck like it was nothing, before throwing it at him with breakneck speed. Diego had only half a second to react, and he was a little too late when he turned, the knife leaving a gash on his leg that almost hit squarely, the blade digging deeply into his lab’s tiled floor.

“It’s either you or me who runs out of blood, Diego,” his double grinned, as he scrambled to his feet, immediately on his toes. “And really, I think I know who would win that race between us, don’t you think?”

“Try me.” Diego grinned. “I wasn’t cleared for field work in Desert Bluffs for nothing.”

His double paused for a moment, contemplating on what he said, but it was long enough for Diego to reach for a crowbar near his work desk, and charge forward to ram the forked end into the wound he made on his double’s throat, before pulling down and left with all his might, bringing down the doppelganger to the ground, like a fish caught in a hook.

The scream wasn’t supposed to be that disconcerting to him, but the fact that it was _his_ voice made Diego’s skin crawl as he yanked the crowbar up again, tearing flesh clean off and exposing the ruined oesophagus, and cartilages.

In normal circumstances, he would have taken the time to appreciate all the structures—it wasn’t every day he had the chance to vivisect live specimens (the purging team never allowed him at least one denizen to at least experiment on) but given the conditions, Diego had no time to ogle the sludge of blood and the mangled fibres of muscles.

He turned the crowbar in mid-air, blood flying off it and onto his lab coat, and he brought it down onto his double again, sharp end first, and hooked bits and pieces of flesh and meat and skin and viscera over the slightly-rusty tool, before pulling up, up, up, eliciting broken screams and flying mush until Diego realised he had run out of things to pull.

He looked down and realised he had clawed out more than half of his double.

More than anything, the sight only made him shiver as he suddenly realised Kevin’s voice still talking over the radio.

“ _I can’t leave you, as our show is not yet over, but… there must be something beyond this, something, Desert Bluffs. I must see what it is! I must go!_ ”

“Wait, Kevin?” Diego blinked, making his way over to the radio, calling the broadcaster’s name, like it would reach him over the other side. “Wait,”

“ _I will try not to be long, listeners. I will try not to be long…_ ”

Diego stood there, silent, staring at the radio, confused. Why would Kevin leave his spot like that? Where was that humming coming from?

“ _Hello? Hello? Night Vale_?”

Diego’s eyes widened. This wasn’t Kevin’s voice—this was Cecil’s.

Immediately he dropped the crowbar with a loud, vibrating thud of metal against tiles, blood flying around his feet but he didn’t care.

Cecil was _here_. He was going to _know_.

“What is this studio? What is this damnable studio?”

The walkie-talkie on Diego’s workbench hissed to life, the rattle of noise shaking him from his reverie, as dread filled the young man’s senses.

Years of research was going to get _ruined_ like this—if Cecil ever found out about the _real_ Desert Bluffs, or if Kevin found out about the _real_ Night Vale. He grabbed the walkie-talkie, and pressed the receive button, tuning out the sound of Cecil’s talking to listen to a frantic voice in his ear.

“ _Sir, Subject 34 is in the studio. What do we do?_ ”

“Don’t engage with him. It doesn’t seem like he knows where he is.” Diego bit his lip.

“ _But Sir, if he escapes?_ ”

He groped for his phone in his pocket, currently silently buzzing.

 _Sorry, Carlos_.

“Restrain him. Call me, and I’ll kill him myself.”

 _But I’m not sorry_.

* * *

" _Diego, I heard you had killed your double today_.”

“No big. You know we were cleared for operations for a reason.”

Screams filled the air, as the wet _schlick_ of blood and muscle and skin and viscera slicing into two and falling with a splat on the floor. Diego stepped nonchalantly aside to avoid a heart, wet with blood flying at his face.

“ _For God’s sake, Diego, stop trying to kill yourself._ ”

“I heard _you_ managed to kill your double.”

Carlos fell silent on the other side, and Diego smirked, reaching out for one of the members on the purging team to be handed a revolver.

“I don’t hear an answer, _dear_ cousin.”

“ _You’re an asshole_.”

“I try.”

Three gunshots rang through the air, and three bodies fell to the ground.

“ _Wait, are those gunshots? Where are you?_ ”

“Shooting range.”

He could _hear_ Carlos’s eye roll in his exasperated sigh.

“ _Alright, fine_.” He replied, as Diego shot yet another three people in the torso, aiming at their pectorals, earning him screams of pain that brought a smirk to his lips. “ _Wait, screaming_?”

“It’s a Desert Bluffs thing.” Diego replied offhandedly.

“ _If you’re participating in the purging, Diego, I swear to God_ —”

“How’s Cecil?”

“ _Oh. Well, he’s okay, it seems. Came from God-knows-where and he looked pretty badly shaken_.”

“Aw.” _Too bad_ , Diego wanted to add, reloading his revolver. “At least he’s okay.”

“ _What about Kevin_?”

Diego’s eye twitched, and he fired a shot into the wall right next to an intern.

“Sir! You almost hit me!”

“What _about_ Kevin?” he growled, “Goodbye, Carlos.”

“ _Hey, wait_ —”

He hung up before he even heard what Carlos had to say.


	4. 3B - Conflict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sandstorm, Cecil had said, was supposed to have been announced by the Council, except, they had let their morning pass over their heads like a lazy rainy weekend. However, when the news of doubles suddenly appearing around town came to his ears through Cecil’s beautiful sonorous voice, Carlos knew he just had to try testing for results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, Carlos's side of the Sandstorm episode.
> 
> Headcanon is that Diego and Carlos both had to clear qualifications for field work, and one of them was competence in battle. They had to be able to protect themselves in a fight especially in places like Desert Bluffs and Night Vale. Diego takes great pride in his fighting skills while Carlos would rather talk things out than duke it out, but he can fight, and he had been a guinea pig for one of Diego's experiments, and now lives with a little extra oomph in his muscles--he's stronger than the average guy, but he's not super strong. Just strong enough to... well... break bones with little effort, but not strong enough to lift fridges or cars.
> 
> Diego trains a lot and likes working out and knives and guns. Carlos prefers to fight melee and used to be a boxer when he was in college.

The sandstorm, Cecil had said, was supposed to have been announced by the Council, except, they had let their morning pass over their heads like a lazy rainy weekend. However, when the news of doubles suddenly appearing around town came to his ears through Cecil’s beautiful sonorous voice, Carlos knew he just _had_ to try testing for results.

He had been warned not to leave his apartment and lab that afternoon by his fellow lab-mates, as they all rushed into their respective cars to skip town until the sandstorm had, at least, abated.

He had snorted, shaking his head at his lab-mates’ hurry to leave, rolling his eyes, as he listened in back to Cecil’s voice, opening the window of his lab to reach out with a little vial in his hand to get a sample of it, carefully gripping it in his hand to avoid dropping it to the ground, a storey down.

He hadn’t realised the radio suddenly stopping, though, until he had closed the window, smiling down at the vial filled with strange sand in his hand. The silence was eerie, when Carlos closed the window, the sound of the sandstorm hitting the walls of his lab and home muffled by the walls around him, keeping the sand out…

And trapping him inside.

He turned around, eyebrow raised. Had the radio broken—

His eyes widened with shock and he nearly dropped the vial of sand in his hand when he saw an exact double of himself smirking at him as it stood next to the radio, fingers that looked exactly like his on the dials of the radio.

“Annoying bastard, isn’t he?” his doppelganger asked with a voice exactly like his, as Carlos felt a twinge something that screamed _ANGER_ in his chest. “I bet his voice just pisses you off every time you listen to it. Won’t Night Vale just get a new broadcaster? This one dotes the shit out of you.”

“Who are you?” Carlos demanded, stuffing the vial into his lab coat’s pocket, raising his hands into fists, gritting his teeth in annoyance as he heard his own voice badmouth Cecil, the sound grating on his inner ears, and head, and he couldn’t understand why. He _did_ know, however, he should get _rid_ of it.

“You, except, I’m not really you.” The man replied, “You should have listened to this blabbermouth bastard that won’t stop talking about you.”

“Cecil is _not_ a bastard, nor is he annoying,” Carlos growled out, his voice gravelly with anger that he didn’t know he possessed. It was strange, how defensive he was of Cecil, no matter how exasperated he was with the way the broadcaster gushed about him on public radio.

Suddenly he double launched forward, hands out in front of him ready to wrap around his neck and _squeeze_ , but Carlos dropped low to dodge him, throwing a wild uppercut right at his double’s thyroid cartilage, earning him a strangled choke and his doppelganger fell back onto the tiled ground of his lab. Quickly he darted away, fists raised, ready to fly, and on his toes, lightly bouncing on them, ready to move if needed.

He hadn’t sparred like this in a while, and Carlos bit his lip in worry. While he _had_ been cleared for field operations in a place like _Night Vale_ , he was out of practice. It was times like this he wished he had a knife or some other weapon with him, like Diego carried around with him his favourite knife.

He paused—then again, he didn’t think himself a murderous douchebag like his cousin was.

“It’s either you or me who runs out of air, Carlos,” his double shakily spoke up, his voice slightly weakened, and Carlos sighed slightly in relief to find he still had his strong punch—the doppelganger’s vocal cords were damaged slightly, no doubt. “And really, I think I knew who should win that race between us, don’t you think?”

“Try me,” Carlos spat. “I wasn’t cleared for field work here in Night Vale for nothing.”

His double shook his head, chuckling darkly, before lunging at him again. He side-stepped to dodge him, grabbing at the keys hanging next to the door to the stairs before stabbing them in his doppelganger’s shoulder, earning him a groan from the man. Hurriedly he pushed him away, making him stagger backwards into the lab, before he rushed outside and locked the door from outside.

He bounced on his heels as he stood on the first step of his stairs. Downstairs, the radio was still on, and his eyes widened when he heard what Intern Dana had translated from Old Woman Josie’s rune stones: “ _They come in twos. You come in twos. You and you. Kill your double_.”

So _that_ was it, he guessed—the only way to get rid of his double.

He ran downstairs, and frantically looked around—to find a bunch of bananas on his kitchen table. A wild idea spread in his mind, and he frowned at the sheer absurdity of it all.

He paused—this was _Night Vale_ he was talking about— _absurdity_ is rationality.

Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone and called Diego.

“Don’t go outside; don’t meet your double, I swear to God,” he growled the moment Diego picked up, and immediately hung up as he plucked three bananas off the hand and frantically peeled them, putting the fruit down on a plate on the table before tossing the skin on two random steps on the stairs, before rushing to a hidden closet in his kitchen to pull out an umbrella as he heard the door upstairs shattered.

“Carlos!” he heard his voice calling. “Where are you?”

He sighed, took a deep, shaky breath, before he ran out to the bottom of the stairs. “… Right here.”

“With an umbrella and banana peels on the stairs? Someone’s given up easily.” His double smirked, running down the stairs, avoiding the two steps by jumping over them.

“Not yet.” Carlos replied simply, tossing the third skin right where his double would land. The doppelganger’s eyes widened as he stepped on it, slipping forward, as Carlos knelt down right beneath him, and pressed the umbrella’s locking mechanism off.

A blade sprung out from the middle stalk of his umbrella as it flared open, a wet sound of flesh bodily hitting metal filling the air as he saw deep, viscous liquid run down the cloth of his Strex-issued defence weapon. Carlos winced, waiting for a few moments, before closing the umbrella to find his doppelganger had impaled himself, eye-first, into the umbrella’s blade.

His hands shook, and he made a move to drop the umbrella, only for his double to convulse, screaming bloody murder in Carlos’s voice, making his skin crawl and his bowels churn. Carlos grabbed the umbrella, pulling it back with his double’s head along with it, and brought his elbow down on his double’s back, sending him onto the ground with a sickening crack of vertebra and the wet _schlick_ of blood and tearing muscle.

Silence followed after that, Carlos was panting and his hands shaking as he waited, and waited for something to happen.

After what felt like an eternity, he relaxed, only for his double to convulse again, gurgling out blood from a bleeding, ruined mouth, and he panicked, jumping to action once again and delivering a roundhouse kick at the double’s neck on the ground, ramming his heel into the double’s nape and into the tiled ground of his apartment, hearing the sound of vertebra cracking and carotids snapping and muscles tearing and tiles cracking as his foot landed heavily down onto the ground.

A timid shake of his umbrella followed suit, and much to Carlos’ horror, he saw his double’s head come off from its body.

He didn’t move a muscle until a Secret Police team burst into his house to clean up the mess. His personal Secret Police watcher (a woman, heavy-set, with a thick Texas accent and flaming red hair) draped a shock blanket over his shoulders, led him to his couch and sat him down, and squeezed his shoulders reassuringly as another one (her partner, a slim young woman wearing a balaclava darker than their uniform) handed him a cup of coffee she made for him in his kitchen and set the plate of peeled bananas down next to him on his couch.

When the mess was cleaned up and Carlos was left all alone in his living room, he got up and turned the radio on again, losing himself in the soothing sound of Cecil’s voice as he drank up the coffee (which, he gratefully noted afterwards, had been added with a shot of gin) and reached for the bananas.

One had a little blood splatter on it. He touched not a single one of them and pushed them aside before curling up on the couch, lulling himself to sleep at the sound of Cecil’s voice.

“ _Whoever you are now, you are home. We are home, Night Vale. You and I are together again. My mouth, your ears; we have each other._ ”

A small smile crossed Carlos’ face, for some unknown reason, and he didn’t care.

“ _And for now, and always, good night, Night Vale. Good night_.”

* * *

It was difficult to talk about killing doubles, but Carlos had to make sure Diego was alright. He heard from a few lab-mates that Diego had pretty much the same experience as he did. Even if he had called him not to do what he did.

(Granted, the call lasted only a few seconds. He doubted Diego even understood what he said.)

He decided to start out nonchalantly.

“Diego, I heard you killed your double today.” He said, as he closed the door behind him after a rather… riveting interview with Cecil. The broadcaster had almost immediately visited his apartment after the broadcast finished, giving Carlos almost no time to sleep, and promptly dragged him out to Big Rico’s to, quote, ‘get an in-depth eyewitness report on what doppelganger attacks were like on regular citizens.’ The fact that Cecil didn’t have so much as a notebook with him and the look of distress on his face clearly told Carlos he was there simply because he was worried.

To be frank, he was a little touched by Cecil’s sentiment, and decided to leave out the parts where he was almost killed. By the end of his recounting, Cecil’s eyes had stars in them, and the mandatory plate of pizza in front of him was turning cold from neglect.

“ _No big. You know we were cleared for operations for a reason_.”

He shook his head, sighing as he pulled away the phone for a moment to hang up his coat and (normal) umbrella on the rack next to the door.

“For God’s sake, Diego, stop trying to kill yourself.” He sighed, sitting heavily down onto his couch again, only to see the plate of bananas, especially the one speckled with blood, and his blood ran cold.

“ _I heard_ you _managed to kill your double_.”

Carlos grimaced, and didn’t say a word, opting instead to pick up the plate and throw the bananas away, before washing up the plate and mug of coffee he had been handed not too long ago, sandwiching his phone between his ear and shoulder, awkwardly tilting both to keep the phone in place.

“ _I don’t hear an answer,_ dear _cousin_.”

“You’re an asshole,” he opted to reply. He was sure the purging team would tell Diego the story for him. Or, perhaps, if he listened to Cecil’s broadcast tomorrow.

“ _I try_.”

Gunshots, three of them, rang on the other side of the phone, and Carlos raised an eyebrow as he wiped his hands dry.

“Wait, are those gunshots?” Carlos asked. It was nearing midnight—well, at least, in _Night Vale_ , it was nearing midnight, “Where are you?”

“ _Shooting range_.”

Carlos rolled his eyes, sighing exasperatedly. Leave it to Diego to develop murderous hobbies. “Alright, fine,” he began to say, when suddenly, after three more gunshots, he heard people screaming. “Wait, screaming?” he asked, his voice hitching up in shock.

“ _It’s a Desert Bluffs thing_.”

Carlos grit his teeth and his brow creased. “If you’re participating in the purging, Diego, I swear to God—”

“ _How’s Cecil_?” Diego suddenly spoke up, and Carlos paused, eyebrow raised.

“… Oh. Well, he’s okay, it seems.” He replied offhandedly, decidedly leaving out how the teary-eyed broadcaster was practically hanging off his arm as they talked in their booth at Big Rico’s. “Came from God-knows-where and he looked pretty badly shaken.” _For me_ , he wanted to add, but he didn’t want to add to Diego’s nasty habit of making fun of him for Cecil’s constant gushing on him.

“ _Aw. At least he’s okay_.”

The bastard sounded disappointed. Carlos shook his head. Two can play at this game, then.

“What about Kevin?”

There was a moment of silence, and a gunshot, and he heard an intern yelling on the other side faintly. He sighed—so he _was_ at a purging. Lying douchebag.

“ _What_ about _Kevin?_ ” Diego growled, “ _Goodbye, Carlos_.”

“Hey, wait, what do you mean—” he stopped himself from speaking when he heard the line drop dead. He scowled, and hung up, tossing his phone to his side on the couch, crossing his arms.

He was about to get up and leave, when he saw his phone buzz silently. He raised an eyebrow and picked it up to see that it was a text from Cecil.

_I’m glad you’re okay._

He smiled slightly, and sent back a reply.

 _I’m glad you’re okay too_.

He froze, and quickly sent another message after it.

_I mean, if you weren’t, it’d be bad for Night Vale, I guess. Somehow that place you went to was really interesting. May I come to the station to search for evidence of the portal?_

He slapped his forehead, and cursed himself for being so awkward.

A reply came sooner than he had expected.

 _I can’t wait. See you tomorrow, Carlos_.

The smile on his face didn’t disappear even after he woke up the next morning half-asleep with a raging headache.


	5. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quietly, he wondered if Carlos had Cecil pressed up against him the way Kevin was right now.
> 
> (No, not yet, probably, he thought to himself—Carlos was too shy, too shy to be so forward in a relationship. He wasn’t even sure if his cousin remotely liked the broadcaster who doted on him possibly day and night.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awwwwwwokay here we go so he's not an asshole and i'm goign to write an au fic watch out for it it's r18 wenk wenk
> 
> i'm super sick right now with a nasty cold ugh but i hope y'all like this shit
> 
> i like this awww yiss
> 
> shit i'm on meds ok
> 
> EDIT: GODDAMNIT EPISODE 33

“Hypothesis—the specimen can form a sense of sentience.”

“Sir?”

Diego looked up from his notebook to see an intern peering into his room, and he gestured for them to enter.

“Sir, the purging team is asking when the next purging is.”

“Later this evening.” He replied, picking up a paper near him on his desk, scanning it with disinterested eyes. “Batch one. Tomorrow will be two. I’ll look around tomorrow for more liberal thinkers.”

“A-alright.” The intern nodded, but did little else. Diego raised an eyebrow at them and carelessly tossed the paper in his hands back onto his desk.

“What else is it?” he asked.

“Sir, I couldn’t help but hear you were doing experiments on sentience?” the intern asked, brushing away a lock of her hair behind her ear, and Diego could see a hint of a flush on her cheeks.

 _Oh_.

“That I am.” He replied, turning his swivelling chair to roll his eyes away from her sight. “It’s an indicator on how successful we are in recreating Subject 34’s manifestation of his town.”

“Cecil Palmer, sir?” The intern pepped up, and he smirked a little wider in amusement. “I’ve been listening to his broadcasts, and I’ve discovered that in the short span that Dr. Vasquez had been in the vicinity, somehow the entire town moves to his favour, and that somehow all the people in town have taking a strong liking to him.”

Diego paused, and turned around to look at the intern, no longer caring about embarrassing her clearly obvious infatuation. “Keep talking.” He ordered, and he saw her eyes widen, before nodding briskly.

“I’ve heard of an incident where a man cut Dr. Vasquez’s hair, and Mr. Palmer didn’t like that, so he broadcasted the barber’s address, and name, on air, and the next thing I hear about him, he’s been driven to madness and depression and was out wandering the sand wastes.”

“Are you telling me that Subject 34’s decisions and emotions are affecting the town and its inhabitant’s _opinions_?”

“Most likely,” the intern nodded, finally smiling, clearly pleased she caught his attention. “Sir, I know you can do the same with Kevin! I’m sure you’ve got the replication this time!”

“Definitely.” Diego grinned, getting up abruptly. “I’ll go talk to him right now.”

The intern’s expression fell. “But, sir, the purging?”

“Go on without me.” He dismissed, pushing past her and hurriedly stepping out the door, an excited smirk on his face.

* * *

“This Steve guy must be _such_ an alert citizen, don’t you think, Desert Bluffs? Thank you for your e-mail again, Steve.”

Diego stood outside the booth, hands in his pockets and staying far away from the walls still covered in human skin (that always stayed fresh, it was starting to turn into a running gag among the purging team) as he watched Kevin go through his broadcast, a small smile on his face.

He checked his watch—it was almost time to go, just the weather to go, and a few more messages.

“And now, dear listeners, I give you the weather.”

The moment Kevin flicked the metacarpal bone switch to turn the weather recording on and pull his headphones off, Diego knocked lightly on the window pane (or, at least, what was still intact of it), catching Kevin’s attention.

“Diego!” the broadcaster smiled brightly, getting up from his seat, “I didn’t know you’d be coming over.” He spoke up, walking up to him to talk past the shattered glass of the window.

“I just wanted to see you.” He smoothly replied, smiling at him kindly, and much to his satisfaction, a yellow flush crossed Kevin’s cheeks.

“Th-that’s great,” he replied weakly, flustered, and Diego chuckled—only to stop abruptly when blood trickled out from Kevin’s nose. “Oh.”

“Let me get that,” Diego spoke up, reaching forward without thinking, wiping away the blood with his thumb gently, and only when he pulled away did he realise what he just did.

Kevin smiled at him shyly, and giggled lightly. “My head just hurts, Diego. The nosebleed’s fine.” He assured the man, but the yellow flush on his cheeks gave away how flustered he was.

“Sorry.” He replied, almost automatically, but Diego did a double-take and cleared his throat. “Are you free after this broadcast?”

He saw Kevin’s eyes widen, and then he hesitated, but eventually relented.

“I am.” He replied with certainty, and Diego smiled at him.

“Great. Let’s go grab dinner, okay?” he asked, and Kevin’s smile widened all the more, and he saw the hint of slightly-sharp teeth and Diego couldn’t help the sense of pride swell inside him.

 _I made that, yeah_.

“I’d love to.” Kevin smiled. “I just have to, uh,” he gestured at the bloodied booth, and Diego waved his hand dismissively.

“Go on, finish up,” he replied, “I’ll wait for you out here.”

Kevin smiled brightly at him and returned to his post, as Diego pulled out his notebook.

_Blood reaction to purging – still the town._

* * *

“Do you have a last name?” he casually asked as he and Kevin sat down together on the roof of his car, their arms pressed lightly together. A box of take-out he and Kevin had procured from the local KFC combo store sat behind them, empty gravy cups and bones (some looking suspiciously human, but Diego wasn’t one to complain, if they tasted as well—or even _better_ than the Original Recipe chicken) piled up inside the bucket. Above them, in the distance, little lights flashed in the air, beautiful and bright against the darkness of the void above their heads, and somehow Diego knew that those were the lights above the Arby’s all the way in Night Vale, and that his cousin was probably there as well, looking up at them, the same way he was right now.

Quietly, he wondered if Carlos had Cecil pressed up against him the way Kevin was right now.

(No, not yet, probably, he thought to himself—Carlos was too shy, too shy to be so forward in a relationship. He wasn’t even sure if his cousin remotely _liked_ the broadcaster who doted on him possibly day and night.)

“Oh, yeah,” Kevin nodded distractedly, pausing for a moment. Diego patiently waited for a reply, drumming his fingers lightly against Kevin’s thigh, relishing in the little squeak he got from the man’s lips. “I-it’s… it’s, oh…”

“Take your time—” Diego began to say, when Kevin jolted, his eyes wide with realisation.

Diego smirked to himself. This guy must _really_ like him.

“It’s Free. My surname.” The smile on Kevin’s face never failed to blossom into something completely different each time Diego looked at it, and for some reason, he released a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

It came out as a sigh of disappointment. Diego didn’t want to think about why, as he nodded, plastering a smile on his face as he lifted his hand to brush against the corner of Kevin’s lips. Behind him, his other hand reached for his pen and blindly groped for his notebook.

He didn’t want to look away from Kevin, not when he was making the cutest doe-eyed look, eyes wide and cheeks suddenly flaring with yellow warmth, lips parting in a tiny, nervous gasp as his thumb wiped at the corner of his mouth.

“You had gravy on there,” Diego lied, smoothly as he always did. The weight of his lies was getting easier and easier to ignore, he realised, as he saw Kevin shy away from him, cheeks burning yellow, hands flying up to cup his burning cheeks.

“Thank you,” the broadcaster weakly thanked him, evidently flustered, turning away his face in a vain attempt to hide his blush. (Impossible, Diego thought, not when Kevin literally _glowed_ yellow, like the sun, when he blushed.) Briefly, Diego turned his head as well, pulling his hand away to cover his mouth that was threatening to break out into a smirk, or a wide, goofy grin, he didn’t know, looking down at his notebook to scribble down a few notes:

 _Thoughts of freedom – SENTIENCE. Investigate further.  
_ _Alert purging team tomorrow._

“Diego,” Kevin spoke up, and he turned around to see the broadcaster looking at him with such a gentle look on his face it made the scientist do a double-take. (And, perhaps, make his heart have even more premature ventricular contractions.) “I don’t want to come off too strange, but, well,” he shrugged, smiling weakly. “I was wondering if this was a… um…” Kevin looked off to the side, biting his lip gently with slightly pointed teeth, and Diego lifted an eyebrow, smirking,

“A…?”

“A-a… oh, I’m sorry, I just—”

“A date?” Diego asked, lowering his voice, making it breathier as he leant closer to the broadcaster, who stiffened up visibly next to him, pressing their bodies a little closer than they used to.

“Y-yes,” Kevin stammered, smiling awkwardly, unconsciously leaning in closer to Diego, a strange vibration rising from the back of his throat when Diego’s hand came up to his nape and his fingers tangled into the locks of his hair, warmly caressing the back of Kevin’s neck. The scientist could barely contain the smile that crossed his lips.

Kevin was _purring_. How cute.

“Probably.” Diego murmured. “What do you say?”

“I wish it was,” Kevin replied in a heartbeat, but then his eyes widened and he made a move to pull back, but Diego’s hand on the back of his head tightened slightly and he pulled the broadcaster forward and pressed their lips together.

Kevin tasted like caffeine, and talc, and salt, and blood, and something _else_ , a flavour Diego couldn’t place.

He realised he rather liked it, as he opened his mouth against Kevin’s closed ones and prodded his tongue into the seam between soft lips. He muffled an embarrassed whine with his mouth, and he smirked into the kiss as he rubbed the tips of his fingers softly, warmly into Kevin’s scalp, as he felt the broadcaster’s hands fist in his lab coat’s lapels.

“Open up.” He murmured lowly between a kiss on closed lips, earning him a little whine, and pliant lips finally opened up to allow him to slip his tongue in, as he felt Kevin’s fists tighten on his lab coat.

Chuckling into the kiss, Diego lightly teased the insides of Kevin’s mouth, getting more of that _other_ taste he got off Kevin’s lips, and he found it so irresistibly sweet.

Almost addicting, he thought to himself as he pulled away, but stayed only a few inches away from Kevin’s face, his breath and Kevin’s breath mixing between them in warm puffs of air in the cold night desert breeze.

“That was—that was,” Kevin tried to say, but Diego smiled and pressed his finger to the broadcaster’s lips.

“I’ll get you back to your apartment.” He simply said, billows of pride swelling up inside him as he saw Kevin positively—no, _literally_ —glowing yellow with embarrassment. He took the broadcaster’s hand, and gently led him down from the roof, before grabbing the bucket of bones and putting it in the backseat, as Kevin climbed into the passenger side seat.

The ride to Kevin’s apartment was still and silent, but Diego knew he did a job well done, when he came to a stop at Kevin’s apartment door. He turned to say something to him, when Kevin leant forward and gave him a shy peck on his lips. His eyes widened slightly, as the broadcaster smiled at him sheepishly.

“That was great.” Kevin mumbled, and a warm smile spread across Diego’s face.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Kevin.”

Kevin beamed at him, and nodded.

“Good night, Diego.” He replied, before stepping outside. “Good night.”

Diego’s expression fell slightly, but he still managed a smile at Kevin as he left the car to get to his apartment. When Kevin was gone, Diego began the slow drive back to his own apartment, a frown growing on his face as he stepped out of his car and into his living room.

Those very words reminded him exactly who Kevin was—a simple clone, a subject meant to be studied, and that was all.

Then why was it, he thought to himself, why did he _enjoy_ that so much? A simple kiss, a simple silent time together, that unique, sweet, _addicting_ taste on Kevin’s lips that was just so _Kevin_ Diego found himself looking for more?

Groaning, he pulled out his notebook to write his observations during their time together—only he couldn’t write anything worth using as experimental data. All he could think about was the sound of Kevin’s soft whine, his purr of contentment, Kevin’s strange, unique taste, scent, his look—

Diego growled and tossed his notebook aside.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

This was impossible!

He was going to make _sure_ of that.


	6. A Half Year Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oddly, there was nothing scientific about that move, nothing beneficial to him or StrexCorp, but it felt like it was the best decision Diego had ever made that day. The feeling of Kevin’s arms wrapping around the back of his neck told him he wasn’t the only one thinking that way.
> 
> Together, they stood in the hot desert sun, and somehow, Diego understood. He understood the sun high above them, and he knew Kevin did as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok this got suuuuuuuuper long wow more like n o
> 
> it's a peace offering for the lost days when I was sick and busy with studies. This chapter was written in about 4 hours and is 9 pages long. Wooooooowza. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~also i killed off some random scientists wheeee~~
> 
>  
> 
> And another thing: [my moirail](http://sillehfrilleh.tumblr.com) did a thing for me. [This is what she thinks Diego looks like](http://24.media.tumblr.com/cb4b589e61bc6ac1f4095917c88ebd85/tumblr_mrubwexRG51rjr6wxo2_1280.jpg). What do you guys think he looks like?

One morning he got a call from Carlos about some underground town that was sending waves of paranoia all over Night Vale because of some bowling alley (and fun complex)’s owner’s own frantic conspiracy theories and militia walking all over the damned place, causing confusion all over the town and the bowling alley. As he headed out the door for work, slinging his lab coat over his shoulder as he jingled the keys to his car in his other hand, Diego laughed at Carlos’ predicament with his lab mates about who was going to go with him to the Desert Flower Bowling Alley (and Fun Complex, and at this Diego wondered where did he get the impulse to say the complete name of the damned place every time he mentioned it).

“ _Diego, don’t laugh. This is serious_.” He heard Carlos’s exasperated voice in the Bluetooth earpiece of his phone, as he made his way to his car.

“Say that and I’ll laugh all the more, dear cousin.” He drawled, unlocking the car and getting in, starting the engine and driving out of his driveway and into the blood-coated road. The snapping of bones and the wet sounds of squelching viscera and flesh under his tyres punctuated his conversation with Carlos as he convinced his cousin that he could go by himself, for God’s sake, he wasn’t some baby who needed backup—he killed his own double, for crying out loud.

“All I’m saying is that you should just go in there yourself, Carlos. You’ll be the star of the story,” he snickered, as he ran over what seemed to be a struggling torso of a man covered in blood and had his long intestine slung over his shoulder. “Good morning!” he tossed out the window, and he got a weak, garbled version of a “good morning” in response.

“ _Wow, morning greetings_?”

“It’s a Desert Bluffs thing.” Diego shrugged off, pulling over to the side to dig around his bag for a box of matchsticks. “Just a sec.” he said, lighting it by striking his dashboard before tossing it out the door.

It hit the man (now half-run over, and wholly wrecked, barely breathing and still minimally able to speak) and instantly torched him, his body lighting up in flames almost instantly, like fire taking to fuel, and with a cool expression, Diego looked on, before noting his observations in his notebook, tuning out the distressed screams from the burning man, before continuing to drive away.

“ _More screaming. Let me guess—it’s a Desert Bluffs thing_.”

“You know me _so_ well, Carlos.” Diego snickered. “Anyway, if you, ‘Mr. Brave, ooh, oh, so _brave_ Carlos the Scientist’, walked right into the fray by yourself, I can only imagine the stars in your little admirer’s eyes.”

“ _Don’t bring Cecil into this—this is purely a scientific investigation_.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Just know that no one’s going with you, Carlos.” Diego declared, “And I’m driving into the building now. Bye.”

“ _Ugh, bye. God, you’re such a jerk_.”

“I miss you too.” He laughed, as he pulled into his parking space in the Strex underground parking lot.

Diego hung up, pulling off his earpiece and gathering his things into his bag, before pulling his lab gown on. He pulled out his phone to see a text message from Kevin.

_Coffee?_

A small smile crossed his face, which quickly disappeared when he realised what he did. Immediately he sent back a text.

_Sure thing. Let me just log in and I’ll meet you at the café by the radio station?_

He strode to the elevator up to the offices and labs, and was immediately met with his boss as he entered.

“Ah, Dr. Montez, good morning.” He greeted, the younger man stiffly nodding to him as he entered. “How is Desert Bluffs treating you?”

“Surprisingly well.” Diego replied with ease. “I’m here to request a purging.”

“Ah, ever the diligent worker.” The man sighed, and a moment of silence passed, where Diego checked his phone after it buzzed in his pocket.

 _Can’t wait to meet you. Good morning, Diego_.

It made a smile cross Diego’s face unheeded again, and his boss saw it, grinning slightly as he spoke up again. “We’ve got a new assignment for you, by the way.”

“W-wait, what?” Diego immediately snapped up, his eyes widening and _something_ lodging in his throat in panic. “Wait, I’m not done with studying Desert Bluffs, I can’t _leave_ —”

His boss shot him a bemused look and gripped his shoulder. “We’re not going to relocate you—you’re just going to work with two other staff we’re sending down there, okay?”

Diego blinked at him, and his eyes widened in realisation at what he did. Immediately he shrugged his boss’s hand off his arm and backed away in the small space of the elevator. “O-of course,” he stammered, “Right, I, uh, thank you sir.” He mentally kicked himself for overreacting, for jumping to conclusions, and for letting it show.

Relief washed over him, but he pointedly ignored _that_.

“You’ll be showing around Dr. Ardents and Dr. Corso around Desert Bluffs today, they’re our newest resident scientists. Dr. George Ardents is a new psychologist, very young, just like you are, and Dr. Mark Corso is a visiting geologist to test some facilities of our town.”

“I see.” Diego replied dismissively, already beginning to frown at the thought of handling _strangers_. It was already strange enough having lab mates as it is. At least he had extra hands and cannon fodder, he thought to himself, but having two new co-workers was really pushing it.

“Just between you and me, though, my boy,” his boss grinned, and at this Diego’s eyes widened slightly. “Neither of them are cleared for operations on Desert Bluffs and if they show any, ah, _discomfort_ , you know what to do. They’re, after all, _visitors_ StrexCorp would like _taken care of_.” his smirk widened, and Diego’s eyes lit up with amusement and relief.

“Yes, _sir_. I completely understand.” He replied.

He couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face until he filed the papers for purging, and was even skipping on his way back to his car.

It was hard for him to say what he was more happy about—the prospect of adding his own contribution to Desert Bluff’s rather… _lovely_ choice in road hue and design, or his meeting that morning with Kevin.

* * *

Sorry, I got held up a bit,” Diego apologised, allowing Kevin to take a seat in the booth they had picked (well, _Diego_ had picked—the cleanest one he could find, he left his lab gown in his car outside) before slipping in beside the broadcaster, earning him a rather undignified squeak of both delight and alarm, Kevin’s cheeks flaring yellow again as their sides pressed against each other.

“N-no!” Kevin almost squealed; his lips upturning to a wide smile as Diego gave him a kind laugh, lacing their fingers together under the table. “I-It’s fine, I just came back from logging into work, too,” he gushed, as his own hand, warm with a yellow flush, squeezed Diego’s hand back.

“No need to be so jumpy, Kevin.” Diego spoke up, lifting their interlaced hands together on the table, rubbing his thumb over Kevin’s knuckles. “Are you alright?”

“I-I’m fine, more than fine, really!” the broadcaster replied, smiling widely now, happily, as he watched Diego’s thumb run over his hand. “I took my Strex pills this morning,” he spoke up loudly, obnoxiously so, before lowering his voice again, “And I-I’m just…” he giggled lightly, and peered at Diego past long eyelashes. “May I?”

He didn’t know what Kevin meant, but he nodded.

The broadcaster smiled at him widely, before leaning in and cuddling against his arm, hugging it tightly (almost to the point of cutting off his circulation there, but he knew better than to interrupt Kevin’s notion of a loving _cuddle_ and silently just thanked whatever deity looking down on him that it wasn’t an actual _hug_ Kevin gave him) and cuddling up to his side, pressing them closer together, close enough for Diego to hear and feel the vibrations coming from Kevin’s throat.

(He really had to somehow thank that co-worker of his that thought of putting false vocal cords in addition to the actual cords while they were developing Kevin.)

“Nice to see you’re happy.” He half-murmured, planting a soft kiss on Kevin’s hair, earning him a breathless sigh and a pleasant tingle in his ears at the sound of it.

“I am, Diego. So very happy.”

His heart made a premature ventricular contraction again, and it was starting to get _very_ unsettlingly annoying.

Focus, Diego, he told himself, you’re doing this for _science_ , don’t get distracted!

“Kevin, I’m sorry to bring this up here, but I have to bring work here to us,” he began, clearing his throat and gently moving (wait, _gently_? What for, Diego?) his arm to tell Kevin to let go. He saw the slightly disappointed look the broadcaster had on his face, but said nothing about it. “I have two new colleagues who’re coming over today to look around Desert Bluffs.”

“That’s nice,” Kevin began to say, and for some reason, Diego had the urge to pep him up.

“I was wondering if you want to come with me,” he blurted out, without meaning to, and his eyes widened when he realised what he just said.

He couldn’t take it back, though, not when the look that crossed Kevin’s face held all the surprise and happiness he could ever deem possible in those big, hopeful eyes staring right back at him.

“Yes, of course. I’d love to!” Kevin gasped, nodding, “O-of course, to show them my beautiful home, n-not solely just to spend time with you, or anything.”

Specific denial—Kevin wanted to spend time with him, did he? How cute.

The sound of voices outside caught Diego’s attention and he turned to look to see a large StrexCorp van outside the café. “They’re here,” he spoke up, watching two figures get down from the van, visibly flinching away from the surroundings as they were pushed along by heavily-armoured secret Strex Police.

Beside him, Kevin finally received the cup of coffee he ordered (bitterly cold and seasoned with salt and talcum powder, mixed with what looked suspiciously like goat blood and baby tears, as always), and was now stirring it slowly, squeezing Diego’s hand from time to time as he stared at the man rather than at the door.

“Kevin,” Diego spoke up, as the two scientists were shoved unceremoniously into the café with them, clearly appalled by the blood and viscera that decorated the walls.

(Oddly, when Diego entered the place, he hadn’t minded. He wondered at the back of his mind _why_.)

Kevin pulled away from Diego, pouting slightly, but he smiled lopsidedly at the broadcaster before getting up from their seat to meet up with the two scientists. “Dr. Ardents, Dr. Corso, I presume?” he asked, holding his hand out for them to shake.

One of them, the Italian man, grabbed his hand, his eyes wide and wild. “Where is this place? This—this _hell_?” he hissed at Diego, pulling him a little closer forcibly, desperate for a human anchor in the bloodied café. “Are you here because they want to kill you, too?”

“Of course not, StrexCorp would never want to hurt its scientists.” Diego lied smoothly as he always did, shaking the man’s hand in his and pulled it away from the iron grip while keeping on a straight face. “My name is Diego Montez, I’m a biomedical engineer, and I’ve been assigned to field work here; I was told to show you two around—”

“Dr. Montez, please, you have a car, right? The clean-ish one outside? Let’s escape; you don’t have to put up a façade,” the other scientist spoke up, “We have to get out of here, before these—these _monsters_ ,” he spat, and at this Diego felt a pang of annoyance in his chest, “Kill us, come on!”

“Nonsense, all the citizens of Desert Bluffs are _wonderful_ people,” he hissed through grit teeth, and he was about to say more, when he saw the two scientists visibly stiffen in front of him.

“Hello!” Kevin greeted them, holding his cup of coffee, smiling at them with slightly blood-speckled lips and reddish fingertips (oh, Kevin must have been playing with the piece of intestine hanging as curtains waiting for him) giving them a tiny wave. “Welcome to Desert Bluffs. My name is Kevin,” he cheerfully introduced himself, “The Voice of Desert Bluffs.”

The two scientists shrank away from Kevin, shaking visibly, and the broadcaster frowned slightly, before turning to look quizzically at Diego, who only shrugged at him.

“Well, Diego and I are going to show you around town! I hope you’ll like it here, Desert Bluffs is simply _perfect_ , I say,” Kevin laughed brightly, smiling just as brightly, and Diego could see the yellow flush on Kevin’s cheeks darken slightly as he spoke. “It’s my home, you see, I hope you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure they will,” Diego smiled at him, “Go on ahead to the car, I’ll just talk to them, okay?” he told Kevin, handing him his keys, before the broadcaster walked out of the café.

“What is… that… _thing_?” Corso spat, and Diego whirled around faster than he would have liked, given he was still in much control of what he was doing, to glare at the man. “His eyes—his hands—Dr. Montez, is that—is that—?”

“ _That_ is Kevin Free, and he is my—” boyfriend, he almost said, but he cut himself short before he could say anything, and decided to say instead, “Creation. A product of my research.”

“An abomination!” Ardents yelled, throwing his hands up, “Dr. Montez, how can you stand with this depravity?”

Diego grit his teeth, but stood his ground. “If you’d follow me outside, please, doctors.”

He stormed out of the café, boiling angrily more than he would have liked, stepping into the hot desert sunlight to see Kevin ‘hugging’ a passing-by woman (whom Diego recognised as one of the interns that had ‘contracted a terrible cold’ a few days ago—instead, of course, she had to be taken away by his team to get an update on the genome of the population; she was only released today), laughing brightly as his hands wrapped painfully tightly around her throat, cutting off her air supply as she herself laughed brightly in his iron grip.

He swore he could hear the sound of muscles tearing and blood vessels breaking.

He could almost sigh in pride—his creation was such a fearful, powerful thing.

 _Beautiful_.

Behind him, though, the two scientists recoiled in horror, as they watched Kevin tear through her throat, before snapping her neck, her head lolling to the side like a sack of potatoes held to a larger bag by only its sack.

“Oh, Diego! Look, it’s Intern Ana, she’s feeling much better lately,” Kevin smiled as Diego approached them, holding up the half-limp body by the neck, “She says she had been given a most wonderful medicine to make her headaches go away!”

“Yeah, I was there,” Diego smiled at Kevin, before turning to Ana—or at least, what was still functioning of her—her mouth (barely), and the lower half of her body. “Hi, Ana.”

“ _Hhhllll… dccccc… mmmmmnnnnssss_ ,” she hissed through a half-closed mouth and blocked-off respiratory system, and Kevin giggled brightly.

“Oh, Ana, you don’t have to be so formal,” he said, slapping her on the back, earning him a sickening _crack_ of vertebra smashing under the force of Kevin’s hand, and the intern crumbled to the ground. She breathed out a few more intelligible groans and gurgles, Kevin nodding attentively, like as if she was still talking. “Oh, I see, you have to get home to rest some more, right. I’ll see you again soon, Ana!” he smiled, waving at the almost-corpse at his feet, before smiling brightly at Diego as the man watched her pull herself to the road to get run over, or to kill—no, _greet_ some other schmuck on the other side of the road.

“I got the car started up, Diego,” Kevin spoke up, catching Diego’s attention, and the man opened his mouth to thank the broadcaster, only to be interrupted by the two scientist lurching clumsily forward to pull them apart, grappling for the car.

“Out of our way! We’ll leave, then! We’ll tell the world about this!”

Diego’s eyes darkened, and he made a move to pull out his favourite blade, when Kevin launched forward to pull one of them away from the doors, suddenly-sharp nails digging into soft human flesh as he grabbed him by the nape, earning him a loud scream of both pain and horror.

“A little excited, sir?” he chuckled brightly, before digging his nails into the side of the man’s neck, cutting off an imminent scream. “Calm down a little—here, let me ease the tension out of your neck.”

“Why you—!” the other scientist began, letting go of the car to rush at Kevin, only to be intercepted by Diego kneeing his gut, knocking the air out of his lungs, sending him crashing to the ground, as the other scientist struggled weakly in Kevin’s grip as slowly, Kevin dug his nails deeper and deeper into flesh, turning his fingers and nails in a slow circle, widening the diameter of the pits he made in his neck, until the struggles got weaker, and weaker, until he didn’t move anymore.

“There we go!” Kevin brightly cheered; pulling his nails out through what else was left in the scientist’s neck, tearing out the hyoid bone, the throat cartilage, and bits of the pharynx, dropping the scientist like a stone as flesh and cartilage spewed out onto his clothes, a few droplets spattering his lips and cheeks.

The other scientist let out a scream of horror, his eyes wide as he shakily stood up, pointing at Kevin with a shaking finger.

“Oh, what’s the matter? You need help too—?”

“You monster! You-you _monster_!”

Kevin’s eyes widened, and he froze in his spot, as the scientist whirled around to face Diego. “And you! You’re just as bad as _that_ is!” he yelled, but Diego wasn’t listening—he was staring right at Kevin, whose eyes were wide, and then lowered, dejected— _hurt_ , and Diego somehow wanted nothing more than to wipe those tears welling in the corner of those eyes.

It was that distraction that allowed the scientist to land a blow on Diego’s face, his glasses flying clean off his face, the punch registering only when Diego staggered back, his centre of gravity swaying as caught himself, realisation striking him harder than the punch did—

And suddenly blood splattered on his face, and he forced his eyes to focus on the blurry world in front of him.

He could see the scientist who punched him, stock-still, and he realised there was an alarmingly large patch of red in the middle of the usually pristine white Strex lab gown, and something that looked like a _hand_ stuck out from the red patch, which looked like it was above the pericardial cavity.

Diego’s eyes widened in realisation. That hand was _Kevin_ ’s, and it had gone straight through the heart’s cavity. Possibly, grabbing onto the heart and yanking it out of its place.

Tentatively he reached forward and he felt soft, squishy viscera on his fingertips, and the warm, shaking hand that held the heart.

He let out a breath he didn’t realise he held, and he gently eased the heart out of Kevin’s hand and laced his fingers with Kevin’s.

“Kevin.”

“I-I’m sorry, Diego, he called you a-a,” Kevin choked, pulling his hand out of the cavity, but not letting go of Diego’s hand, tearing through a path through the side of the body, spilling blood all over the both of them, slapping what felt like the man’s lung against Diego’s forearm, but he didn’t care, not when as the body fell away and he felt the other warm hand slip his glasses back onto him, jarring his world into stark clarity, to see Kevin looking up at him, his face dotted with blood and bits of gore, tears streaking down his face.

Diego stepped forward, over the dead body, to kiss Kevin’s forehead.

“And I just couldn’t—not you, not wonderful, amazing, kind Diego,” he babbled, as he let Diego pull him to his chest, the blood squelching between them, but Diego cared less. “I-I _can’t_.”

“You don’t have to.” Diego softly told him, smoothing the broadcaster’s hair soothingly, before lifting Kevin’s chin to look at him. “I’m okay.”

Kevin’s lower lip wobbled, and Diego wanted nothing more than to kiss them back into a smile.

So that was what he did.

Oddly, there was nothing scientific about that move, nothing beneficial to him or StrexCorp, but it felt like it was the best decision Diego had ever made that day. The feeling of Kevin’s arms wrapping around the back of his neck told him he wasn’t the only one thinking that way.

Together, they stood in the hot desert sun, and somehow, Diego understood. He understood the sun high above them, and he knew Kevin did as well.

It took all his strength to convince himself that he still didn’t, and the feel of blood, and gore, and Kevin’s warmth as he shook and cried into his shirt reminded him all the more that he shouldn’t understand.

He shouldn’t understand how hearts work. Kevin shouldn’t either.

But they do.

* * *

Miles away, the lights above the Arby’s continued to shine, and two others sat together in time that didn’t exist, silent, and content, and just as understanding as they were, existent or not, as time didn’t and did pass by much like their own set of lights overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i love kevin too much ablublublbubublu 
> 
> whispers the bar au is going underway please patience thank 
> 
> O u O


	7. An Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Cecil was developing a will of his own, he wasn’t manifesting reactions that are related to mass genocide of his townspeople, and his emotions and opinions would influence greatly those who live within his town.
> 
> Cecil, at this rate, was going to prosper—live a happy life, with the way things were going, and he was going to spend it with Carlos, it would seem.
> 
> Meanwhile, Kevin…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i wanted to work on diego baby before i magical girl cecil'd
> 
> i missed diego babu so i jsut decided to go for it idek
> 
> whee haircuts and cecilos in hte side i'm
> 
> please don't judge me from me author notes

“Dr. Montez, I think your hair is getting a little long.”

Diego straightened his back, looking up at his co-worker, an eyebrow raised.

“Is it?” he asked.

“Yup, pretty sure. It’s falling over your eyes and you keep flicking it out of the way.”

Diego frowned, and he tugged at one of his dark curls.

“If it helps, it makes you look more like Dr. Vasquez all the more when you do that.”

Diego’s glare hardened, and he whirled around to fire his gun at the citizen tied to the post, hitting them right in the jaw, sending teeth and gums and blood flying off behind them, cutting off a broken scream.

“ _Do_ I?” he snarled, not even turning around to know he had scared the scientist _very_ well.

“W-well, I guess, not really, just sorta? I don’t know.”

Diego shook his head and lowered his gun. “Whatever. I’ll give it a cut later. Maybe just head to the barber’s or something.”

He shook his head, when the scientist scuttled away, and turned to his notebook, only to see a previous note he had written in there—

_Thoughts of freedom—SENTIENCE_

An inkling of an idea formed in his head, and he packed up his things, leaving the purging room behind, but not without pressing a button on the wall, and flicking the lights off.

As the door shut behind him, five individuals tied to the poles that were in front of them let out agonizing shrieks as three-inch-thick spikes shot out of the poles they were tied to, stabbing through all their major organs and slowly bleeding them out, dark, thick Desert Bluffs blood running down their spires to fall to the tiled ground with a wet _shlick_.

* * *

“ _Oh, Diego. I didn’t think you’d call_.”

“Carlos.”

“ _Carlos? Who’s that? Is it family_?”

“ _Cecil, no! Don’t get the phone from me_!”

“ **Carlos**.”

“ _Sorry, Diego. You got me a pretty bad time. I’m at the radio station, and Cecil’s—no! Stop doing that!_ ”

Diego grumbled, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Carlos, get somewhere _private_. I need to talk to you.”

“ _Sure thing, just wait a sec_.”

He heard the sound of rustling and the wet pop of lips not after that. Diego pulled a face as he heard what sounded like Cecil swooning, and rushed footsteps he knew came from his cousin.

“ _Right, so what is it you need from me_?”

“I need to ask you about Subject 34.”

“ _What, Cecil? What about him_?”

“I heard you two are dating?”

“ _That’s hardly scientific, Diego_.”

“That’s the thing—what is going on in Night Vale? Regular death tolls, I’d imagine, right?”

“ _Yeah, we lose an intern and possibly entire football teams at a time. Oh, and lab hands too—I keep losing them when we’re_ —”

“Carlos, does it manifest on the subject?”

“ _No. Not in the way you reported it to me, at least. And Cecil doesn’t look like it’s affecting him in any way at all._ ”

How odd. It was like as if Cecil _wasn’t_ the Voice of Night Vale he was reported to be when he first came to Strex, and more of a normal—well, as _normal_ as three-eyed could get—human being.

“What about the townspeople?”

“ _You have_ no idea _. I remember there was this one time—about a year ago—when I had my hair cut, and Cecil got really mad. Super mad; that he broadcasted the barber’s name and address to the general public—I actually saw an_ angry mob _outside the barber shop—drove him right out of town, the poor guy. Drove him insane, too_.”

“So I heard. Are you telling me that the subject’s opinions greatly influenced the town’s opinion on a single citizen?”

“ _I guess you could say that. It’s pretty odd, but I think that Cecil can actually develop a will of his own, instead of what was initially hypothesized, that it was the actual_ town _speaking through a human medium. I listened to a few old recordings of his old broadcasts, and he sounded really detached—very cold._ ” Carlos sighed audibly from the other side. “ _Ever since I came here, though, things have started livening up._ ”

“So you’re saying he’s started turning human?”

Carlos laughed. “ _As human as Cecil can get, anyway. Think he’s starting to turn less-town, to be exact. Not really sure what he_ is _, though._ ”

“So it’s possible that a town’s manifestation can evolve into something else.” Diego said, mostly to himself, frowning in thought as he tapped his pen on his notebook. “Have you reported this to Strex? I don’t think I remember seeing any reports from you lately.”

There was a moment of silence at the other side, before Carlos spoke up again.

“ _Not yet; it’s still a hypothesis I’ve still got to test out_.”

Diego chuckled. “I’d imagine. You always made sure to double-tap.” He sipped at his tea, “Still, I like your style—get close to the subject enough to study him better. Hey, at this rate, maybe he’ll let you open him up to let you study him.”

“ _… Thank you for that input, Diego._ ” Carlos’ voice sounded strained, and Diego’s smirk on his face slowly disappeared, as a frown replaced the upturn of his lips, and he pulled his phone away from his ear to quizzically stare at the screen, before pressing his ear back to the receiver.

Carlos only got serious and quiet when he was hiding something.

“Carlos?” he asked, suspicious.

“ _Anything else you need, Diego?_ ”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“ _No, no, why would I hide things from you, Diego_?” he heard Carlos reply, “ _We’ve been close since we were kids, you know I never lie to you_.”

Diego paused. That _was_ true, yes. Carlos had always been the child with the heart of gold, but right now his gut was telling him that Carlos _may_ have learned a thing or two from him with regards for secret-keeping.

Still, though, he hides the fact he participates in purging from Carlos, he was sure Carlos had good reason to hide things.

“Alright, whatever; thanks.”

“ _Bye, bebé mapache_.”

Diego frowned, and with a little frown on his face, he dropped the volume of his voice.

“Bye, _gran mapache_.” He half-mumbled and he could hear that small, relieved sigh that he knew always came along when Carlos would hold his breath in nervousness, only to release it in relief. Embarrassed, he immediately hung up without hearing what Carlos had to say.

He stared down at his phone, and then at his mug of tea, and sighed.

Why was he getting so damned sentimental? This was getting ridiculous.

Shaking his head, he turned to his notes—several short phrases dated, scattered, over a few weeks, all bearing the same news.

 _Purging today (1130H)  
_ _Meet Kevin at Arby’s (~1700H)  
_ _Blood reaction to purging – still the town_.

If Cecil was developing a will of his own, he wasn’t manifesting reactions that are related to mass genocide of his townspeople, and his emotions and opinions would influence greatly those who live within his town.

His grip tightened on his pen.

Cecil, at this rate, was going to prosper—live a happy life, with the way things were going, and he was going to spend it with Carlos, it would seem.

Meanwhile, Kevin…

He stopped himself. What _about_ Kevin? So what if that experiment wasn’t exhibiting things Subject 34 was? He could always find some way to mimic it—he’ll find out how that man works, no problem—if they could recreate a personification of a town, they could recreate evolution.

He was a god in his laboratory, creator of millions. He was part of the team that created Kevin.

He was going to make Kevin human, or at least horrifyingly close to the asymptote that drew its curved line between humanity and the supernatural.

Kevin’s happiness did not matter.

It did _not_.

* * *

He went to the barbers after that to have his hair cut, a little trim just to get it out of the way. The scissors used on his hair were a little bloody, but they did the job, as he sat back in the seat that was wet with blood, a “towel” of what looked like the large intestine (he checked, a little wary, the internal canal to find, with great relief, that it was empty of any waste) of some ruminant on his shoulders.

It was still oddly warm, he noted, watching the half-dead, human-bitten fingers of the barber carded through his hair roughly, but he made no noise to complain.

Instead he thought over his notes—he still had a few cultures to take care of back in the lab, and another purging to get to that evening. Right now, though, he should really get home and take a bath—he was  _covered_ in blood.

There was, of course, his date—no, _meet-up_ , with Kevin later.

 _there it was again_ —

The premature ventricular contractions were getting a _little_ out of hand, Diego thought to himself, frowning, and a tap on his shoulder caught his attention. He turned his head to see the barber giving him a little thumbs-up, his thumb falling off his hand as he gurgled at Diego in what sounded like garbled Spanish.

“ _Gracias_.” Diego said, anyway, scowling at how there were too many things going on right now that reminded him of his childhood.

The man gurgled, gesturing at his shoulders, and Diego, after a quick look-around to see a few clavicles (still red and bloody) and muscle-trailing scapulas broken and in pieces scattered around the floor, shook his head and gently rejected the offer to have his shoulders ‘massaged’ in Spanish, getting up from the seat and handing him the intestine towel, and a few dollars for the man’s effort.

The barber shook his head, gurgling a little more and Diego realised his hyoid wasn’t connected to his tongue. He held up his hand to silence the man, and reached for a clump of hair he saw hanging from a broken mirror in front of him, smirking slightly at the fact it still had a bit of scalp at the end. It was long enough to use as a makeshift rope, and Diego reached forward to tie one end around the hyoid’s body, and the anterior horn, before prodding within the man’s (detachable-jaw-facilitated) buccal cavity to tie the other end to the end of the tongue, and inserted the knot through a hole in the frenulum.

He pulled away, his and covered in blood and spit, but the barber, putting back his jaw grinned at him and gave him another thumbs-up.

“¡ _Muchas gracias,_ Doctor!” he smiled brightly, “ _El corte es gratis. Haces_ Kevin _feliz_!”

At this, Diego paused, and blinked at the man, and the barber grinned at him, before gesturing out the window. Diego turned to see Kevin walking down the street, a little bounce in his footsteps as he carried in his arms a baby raccoon.

The scientist blinked, his eyes wide, and the barber elbowed him in his side, winking and waggling his eyebrows, clearly proud of himself.

“¡ _Adelante_!” he grinned, “ _Ve conseguir una cita_.”

Diego felt his cheeks heat up, something he hadn’t done in _years_ , and he stood there inside the barber shop, for once, at a loss on what to do.

It took a rather forceful shove from the barber to get him outside, almost crashing him into Kevin as he walked by.

“Oh, Diego!”

“Kevin!” the scientist caught himself, embarrassed now at everything, and inwardly he cursed himself for not taking control of the situation. “Kevin, hi.” He briefly looke down at himself, his clothes stained with viscous Desert Bluffs blood, his hair mussed slightly, and slightly slicked-up with blood from both the barber's scissors and hands.

The broadcaster gaped up at him, and he frowned, scratching the back of his head, confused. “Kevin?”

“Y-your hair,” he stammered, and Diego blinked at him, before running a hand through his now-short hair.

“Oh, yeah. I had it cut—just now.” He looked over Kevin’s shoulder to see the barber giving him thumbs-up, despite the fact his right thumb was missing.

“You had your gorgeous, beautiful hair cut…” Kevin weakly said, and Diego’s eyes widened— _jesus Christ not him too no_ —

The broadcaster’s look of shock melted into a shy delighted smile, and Kevin hugged the baby raccoon a little closer to his chest. It squirmed around slightly, nipping at his arm, drawing a little blood.

“I love it. The look somehow suits you even better.”

Diego blinked at Kevin, as the broadcaster looked up at him shyly, a flush of yellow clear on his skin. “It looks great on you.” He said again, this time a little firmer and a little more comfortably, and Diego couldn’t help the smile that cross his face.

“Thanks. I was worried you wouldn’t like it.” Of course he wasn’t, but then again, maybe he was. Diego hated the fact he couldn’t make up his mind on what he really _felt_ these days.

Kevin shook his head, “No, no, Diego, I love you any way you are— _oh_.”

Kevin’s eyes widened, and his blush intensified. “Oh, dear.”

Diego did a double-take, and opened his mouth to speak, but Kevin beat him to it.

“Did—did I just say that?” he stammered, “That-that I—”

“You love me.” Diego finished for Kevin and the broadcaster squeaked.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Oh, this is _bad_ , I, uh,” Kevin began to ramble, but Diego chuckled, and leaned forward to kiss him chastely on his lips.

“Neat.” He simply said, pulling away, and he swore Kevin was _glowing_ yellow with how flustered he was.

“N-neat.”

Somehow Kevin said it so much better than Cecil did, and he had heard that himself more than half a year ago.

Diego couldn’t help but laugh, softly, lightly, and kissed him again.

Somehow, Kevin’s happiness _did_ matter, at least, to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The barber said, by the way, that the cut was free because Diego made Kevin happy. 
> 
> Also, he ships kevego so hard it's hurting my cheeks 
> 
> And another thing. Carlos called Diego a "baby raccoon", and Diego called Carlos "big raccoon" when they were kids and when they were super close kawaii cousins.


	8. All I Ever Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t like it when it rains.” He said, looking up at the sunny sky. “It restricts me from what I can do. Fieldwork wouldn’t be successful out in the rain.”
> 
> “It’s never rained in Desert Bluffs before.” Kevin hummed. “I’ve never felt rain before—of course, there’s my shower, but, you know, that’s… different.”
> 
> “It’s pleasant to some people,” Diego shrugged. “But not to me. I prefer sunshine.” Idly, he ran his hand down Kevin’s forearm, before lacing their fingers together on top of the oddly cool car roof. “I like the colour yellow.”
> 
> Kevin smiled. “I like it too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AW YEA YOU GUYS WON'T BELIEVE HOW HAPPY THIS CHAPTER MAKES ME
> 
> ALSO THANK YOU TO DEAR DARLING DAIMON FOR HELPING ME FIX MY LANGUAGE BOO-BOO LAST CHAPTER.
> 
> PLEASE ENJOY AS SOON THE RATING WILL HITCH UP. THERE'S ALREADY A NEW SHINY TAG UP, SO PLEASE NOTICE HOW HAPPY THINGS ARE MAKING ME LATELY.
> 
> THNAK AND ENJOY
> 
> EDIT: GODDAMNIT EPISODE 33

“Has it ever occurred to you that you haven’t seen rain for about a year now?” an intern loudly whispered to his co-worker, who nodded, eyes wide.

“Now that you mention it… it doesn’t rain in Desert Bluffs, like, _at all_.”

“It’s so _weird_ —I mean, yeah, sure, there’s blood and stuff everywhere, but you get used to that after a while—but there’s literally _no weather_ other than sun! And sandstorms.”

“It hardly rains in the desert, you know.”

“ _Explain_ the wild grass on the outskirts of town. Or those wild flowers you saw Dr. Montez holding this morning.”

“I dunno, maybe they adapted?”

Behind them, Diego cleared his throat loudly, and the two interns squeaked, jumping slightly, before turning to face him. “O-oh, Dr. Montez!”

“Don’t you two have work to do?” he sternly asked, and nodding hurriedly, the two scampered away, leaving Diego behind by himself, shaking his head exasperatedly as he held in his hands several stems of brittlebush flowers, each with its own tiny bloom at the tip of their stalks. He sat down heavily on the table, setting down the blooms gently, almost reverently, before peeking around him, making sure no one was around, before arranging the flowers together in a bunch and snapping a picture of them using his phone.

A tiny smile was on his face as he tucked his phone away and snapped a flower off its stem to macerate it for a PCR scan when his boss came up behind him.

“ _Encelia farinosa_.” He said, amused as he picked one up and thumbed its stem. “You loved these when you started your graduate studies.”

Diego said nothing, snatching the flower away from him, pointedly keeping his glance away.

“Montez, no need to get stingy.” He chuckled, “Keep up the hard work, alright?” he gave Diego a pat on the shoulder, before leaving him alone, and the man glared at his boss’s back half-heartedly, before giving a sidelong glance at the flowers on his desk.

Kevin liked the colour yellow, he thought to himself.

Without thinking too much of the situation, he sent the photo he took to Kevin, before turning back to his work.

It wasn’t until much later, as he was waiting for the DNA sequence he extracted to be aligned with the database-logged sequence for the brittlebush to finish, when he got a chance to glance at his phone to see a photo Kevin sent him—this time of a large bush of them, just outside Kevin’s house’s front door.

A smile made its way to his face when he saw the message that came with it:

_Thought you might want to take a look at these, since they look the same as the ones on your lab table. They’re very pretty._

His thumb hovered over the reply button, and his senses finally caught up with him to remind him that Kevin was a _product of his science,_ of StrexCorp, and he was _not looking for love_ but _results_ and he should really stop getting distracted at how much Kevin loved him so.

He hesitated, and pulled his thumb away from the button, setting his phone down on his desk to intently stare at the BioEdit program on his laptop hard at work aligning his sequence of hundreds and thousands of dots and letters, of A’s, and C’s, and G’s, and T’s, and asterisks and dashes that he would usually make sense of easily, but now the sight of them made his head spin, as quietly, he thumbed a brittlebush flower’s petal, thinking of Kevin, and his penchant for yellow, and his bright, sweet smile, and yellow blush, and realised that the petal wasn’t quite as smooth and soft as Kevin’s hand when he held it.

* * *

“How do flowers grow, Diego? It’s never occurred to me to think about that.” Kevin asked, holding Diego’s bottle of water for him, along with his own bottle, as he stood next to the scientist, who was kneeling down on the coarse grass of Kevin’s front porch (littered, as always, with bits and pieces of viscera, still wet and shiny, and Diego was silently grateful Desert Bluffs blood was always wet to keep the plants happy), inspecting the growing brittlebush underneath Kevin’s front window. “Of course, these just appeared overnight—all over the place, actually,” he paused, as if he was about to say something, and Diego turned around to look at him expectantly.

“This bush just grew under your window overnight?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t there after our—” Kevin paused, blushing yellow, and Diego smiled at him. A nervous little giggle escaped Kevin’s lips. “Our… _date_ ,” he said, and Diego could see him give a little shiver of satisfaction.

“I see. So it’s a one-night thing.” Diego nodded, turning his attention back to the plant, thumbing at the petals gently, and a small fond smile crossed his face.

“Diego, um,” Kevin spoke up, before kneeling down next to Diego on the grass in front of the plant, a shy expression on his face, and the man turned to look at him.

“Kevin, you’ll get your pants dirty,” he said, but the broadcaster shook his head.

“No, it’s fine—I don’t have to go to work today, Mayor Pablo Mitchell had declared this morning that it was Plant Day, and that all residents of Desert Bluffs should go home and take care of our homes’ newest addition to our little families.” Kevin said, slipping into his ‘reporter-mode’, as Diego called it, whenever he would start talking about Desert Bluffs again. “Even me. I don’t have to go to work today, and it seemed like Management didn’t mind.”

“I see,” Diego nodded, leaning back slightly to rest on his arms, his palms flat in the crispy grass beneath them. “Luckily, I didn’t get any plants in my house.”

“Oh, Diego, you’re so lucky,” Kevin chuckled, turning his attention to the flowers, and gingerly touching the petal of one. “What are they called, anyway? These yellow flowers?”

“ _Encelina farinosa_.” Diego replied, reaching for the flower Kevin was touching to pick it off the plant, earning him a look of surprise from Kevin, before he brought the flower closer to Kevin’s nose. “The brittlebush. A long time ago, Spanish friars used it as incense.”

“It smells nice,” Kevin nodded, smiling a little wider, “But Diego, why did you hurt it? You didn’t have to take the flower off the plant—look, its stick is really thin, and—”

“Relax, plants don’t feel anything.” Diego assured him, reaching forward to tuck the flower behind Kevin’s ear. “And don’t worry—the brittlebush is really resilient. It’s one of my favourites, anyway.”

“It’s your favourite?” Kevin asked, blinking at Diego with wide eyes, and the man nodded, smiling slightly—and then he paused, realisation striking him like a brick when he realised what he had just said. “ _Diego_ , that’s,” Kevin sighed, his smile widening, “That’s so… that’s… _nice_.”

Diego fell silent, embarrassed at such a confession, as Kevin reached for another bloom—a bigger one than the one adorning his head—and picked it carefully, cutting the stem with long, slightly bloody fingernails before doing just as Diego did, tucking it behind Diego’s ear, giggling lightly.

“I don’t know why you did it to me, but looking at you, I think I understand why.” Kevin smiled, but it fell when the flower slipped from Diego’s ear and onto his lap. “Oh.” He said, sadder, and disappointed, but Diego shook his head and slipped the flower into his lab coat front pocket, the bloom sticking out of the end.

“It’ll be okay here.” He said, and at that Kevin smiled again, nodding. “Want to go get lunch?” he asked, and at this, Kevin nodded, getting up.

“Let me just go get my car keys,” he said, slightly breathless and all too happy to just hear at least _something_ about Diego, rushing into his house, but being careful not to damage the flower Diego had put on his ear.

Left alone outside, Diego caught himself with a slightly goofy smile on his face, and quickly he wiped that off, frowning at himself for letting his mouth run when he shouldn’t have.

He stared back at the brittlebush beneath Kevin’s window to glower at it, only his eyes widened when he saw _more_ blooms popping up by themselves, growing a little larger than their genome would dictate, and their stems growing a little thicker, a little more _resilient_ —

And his jaw dropped in realisation.

This was _Kevin_ ’s doing. It was Kevin making all these brittlebushes grow all over Desert Bluffs, now more than before, especially after what Diego had told him—that this little plant was his favourite.

Kevin was turning into the town—no, he _was_ the town, and now, turning into something much closer to what Diego had been aiming for all along.

 _A replication of Cecil Palmer_.

A rush of exhilaration he knew he only felt after scientific breakthroughs washed over Diego as he bounced on his heels—all his hard work in the lab, they were bearing fruit now! He was really doing it!

“Sorry for taking a while, Diego, I had to look for the keys, they just disappeared in the key cabinet, and I forgot to change the nails holding it up, so—”

Diego cut Kevin off, not because the nails he was talking about were actual _human_ nails, but instead because of something entirely different.

Quickly, he pulled Kevin into his arms, earning him an undignified squeak, and he pressed his lips against the broadcaster, forcefully, the trepidation in their previous kisses gone and now replaced with something warmer— _hotter_.

Pulling away, Kevin blinked at him, blushing bright yellow, and Diego laughed, breathless.

“Kevin, do you want to know more about me?” he asked, and slowly the broadcaster nodded, unable to trust himself to properly speak, like as if Diego had kissed his voice out of his throat.

Diego grinned. “I love raccoons. And sci-fi films.” He held Kevin’s hands, and squeezed them. “I can live on Chinese take-out. I love training, and using guns, and dissections and DNA sequencing.”

“D-Diego,” Kevin managed to say, clearly confused, but he was enjoying the sound of Diego’s usually calm voice speed up and grow breathless in excitement. “I-isn’t this a little too much?”

The man paused, and he pulled back slightly, embarrassed at his outburst. He hadn’t done that in _years_. This was getting ridiculous.

“I—uh.” He paused, mentally kicking himself for being _so_ articulate. “I’m just…”

Kevin smiled at him. “But I like it. I like seeing you like this—so… _happy_.” At this a blush crossed Diego’s cheeks, and he was glad that at least his genes that weren’t messed up were the ones that gave him dark skin. “It makes me really happy.” At this the two shared smiles, and slipped into awkward, yet at the same time comfortable silence.

After a while, Diego laughed weakly, and sighed. “… I think raccoons are cute.”

“Me too.” Kevin giggled, and as he said that, a little baby raccoon ran out between them, climbing up Diego’s jeans and lab coat to squish itself into the crook of Diego’s neck. “Oh, wow,” Kevin laughed, “What luck. And here I was wishing I had a raccoon to give you.”

Diego smiled, and took the baby raccoon into his arms. “I’d say it was Desert Bluffs who gave me this raccoon.” He said, and Kevin gave him a quizzical glance, cocking his head. “Never mind,” he chuckled, pecking Kevin on the lips, before holding up the raccoon. “What’s his name?”

“What do _you_ want to call him, Diego?”

Diego looked at the raccoon, and a pair of big, brown eyes looked back at him, and he smiled.

“Carlos.”

* * *

They had left the raccoon in the car with a bit of viscera they picked up on the road on the way to the spot where they had spent their first date, the abandoned parking lot next to the public library, where above them the sun shone brightly, hotly, but Diego hardly noticed as he and Kevin shared a box of Chinese take-out that had miraculously appeared on the road as they drove to their initial destination, the KFC combo store out on the edge of town.

“So, how do plants grow, Diego?” Kevin asked after a long while of silence, turning to look at him with curious eyes.

The roof of his car beneath them was oddly cool, despite the heat, and while Diego itched to find out why, he didn’t, and instead answered Kevin’s question.

“It’s arrested for a while—the seed. Its growth begins when it is watered, causing the breaking of the seed’s coat—the hard stuff around it—and enzymes and hormones begin what they’re supposed to do as they’re hydrated into working.” Diego replied, “Of course, it isn’t really _that_ simple, but I’d hate to get into details. I’d bore you.”

“You’d never bore me, Diego.” Kevin sighed, and Diego chuckled, shaking his head, before adjusting the brittlebush flower at Kevin’s ear. It was now slightly speckled with blood from all the spattering passing-by cars did with all the blood from the streets. The red was stark against the innocent yellow desert bloom’s petals, and yet it was so fitting. So very… _Kevin_.

A smile made its way to Diego’s lips as he lowered his hand.

“I could just tell you more about me.” He said, and Kevin nodded, his smile widening.

“Yes, please.”

“I don’t like it when it rains.” He said, looking up at the sunny sky. “It restricts me from what I can do. Fieldwork wouldn’t be successful out in the rain.”

“It’s never rained in Desert Bluffs before.” Kevin hummed. “I’ve never felt rain before—of course, there’s my shower, but, you know, that’s… different.”

“It’s pleasant to some people,” Diego shrugged. “But not to me. I prefer sunshine.” Idly, he ran his hand down Kevin’s forearm, before lacing their fingers together on top of the oddly cool car roof. “I like the colour yellow.”

Kevin smiled. “I like it too.”

“Thing is, I only started liking yellow, and the sunshine, when I came here. To Desert Bluffs.”

“… Oh?” Kevin’s voice sounded a little strained, almost choking, and Diego could feel Kevin’s pulse fast under his fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist.

“There’s a lot of other things I could tell you that I like—like brittlebush flowers,” he continued, “And what I don’t like, like the rain, but there’s one thing important that I like that you should know.”

_Hypothesis: Certain actions catalyse change into human-town._  
 _Methodology: Personal interest should be shared to the subject in common, light conversation. Physical interaction encouraged, especially hand-holding, and light kissing.  
_ _Conclusion: True. Subject shows interest in change, environment exhibits visual change: appearance of strong E. farinosa bloom populations increased instantaneously, sudden juvenile Procyon lotor arrival upon mention._

Kevin’s eyes widened and a look of surprise crossed his face as Diego leant close to him, squeezing his hand tenderly in his, as his other hand pushed aside the empty box of food to the side, sliding it down the front windshield of Kevin’s car, leaving the surface behind them empty.

“Another thing I like, Kevin…”

_Hypothesis 2: Words and ideas catalyse change into human-town.  
_ _Method: Feign romantic interest in the subject. Say it is so._

“… Is you.”

Diego leant in, and pressed their lips together, and Kevin let out a squeak as Diego continued to lean forward, pushing Kevin backward until he was lying down on the roof of his car, Diego over him, straddling his hips. Gingerly, embarrassed, and thoroughly flustered, Kevin kissed back, his cheeks flaring yellow as he felt his hips buck involuntarily against Diego’s, earning him a breathless chuckle against his lips.

Pulling away only by a few inches for air, Diego looked right into Kevin’s opposite-eyes with his own odd, out-of-place blue ones, and smiled.

“I really, really like _you_ , Kevin.”

“… _Oh_.” Was all Kevin could muster, before Diego leaned in again to kiss him.

Whining slightly, Kevin kissed back, throwing his arms around the back of Diego’s neck, completely unsure on what to do, relief and delight and _oh goodness whatever did I do to deserve such good fortune_ filling his mind, replacing any sense of doubt as he let Diego’s tongue finally, fully explore his willing mouth, pliant tongue and lips obeying every silent order Diego gave him, as his hips bucked again, right into Diego’s, and _oh_.

Pulling away slightly, Kevin panted, “Was… was that… what was that…?”

“That would be how much I like you.” Diego replied, grinding his own hips against Kevin’s, earning him a mewl of pleasure as a strange new sensation washed over him, electricity sparking down his spine and fire burning where his hips were touching Diego’s, and suddenly his body was hot, much hotter than the sun bearing down on them. “And it seems you like me just as much,” Diego panted, and Kevin nodded, half-desperate for something he wasn’t really sure what, and half-confused, but completely willing.

Diego gave him a smouldering smirk, and Kevin’s stomach coiled, his abdomen flipping as such a strange sensation washed over him, a gasp tearing from his lips as suddenly he came, right then and there, surprising both him and Diego, who stared at him, wide-eyed.

“… Did you just…?”

“I-I don’t know,” Kevin stammered, “I don’t understand what, what happened, I— _oh_ , they didn’t teach me this in high school!”

Diego looked down at the patch in Kevin’s pants, and chuckled, kissing him tenderly on his lips, before pulling away. “You just came. It’s a, uh, biological thing. When you’re aroused, and finally release semen after ejaculation.”

“I-I _came_?” Kevin blinked, and at this Diego couldn’t help but laugh at how innocent the broadcaster was.

Provided, he thought, he _was_ just a lab production.

“Let’s take this to my place. I’ll _show_ you all about it.” Diego all but _purred,_ and Kevin could feel himself stiffen up again inside his pants, his body tingling all over with a feeling he had never felt before as he gave a pleasant shiver, nodding in response.

Diego helped him down from the roof, Kevin wincing at how suddenly sensitive his crotch was, and how sticky and wet his pants became, but a few words of reassurance was all he needed from Diego to calm him down, and instead think of what he—no, _they_ , were going to do when they got to Diego’s home.

He was sure there were some paperwork for this, this— _thing_ , (and at the thought, Kevin blushed a little harder) but seeing as Diego was an employee of Strex maybe he had already done the paperwork.

It was a little thrilling, Kevin thought, that they were going to do this.

“D-Diego,” he spoke up when they were both settled in his car, Diego at the wheel and steadily driving away, “Are we… um,” he peeked at Diego, who nodded at him, his eyes still on the road. “Are we boyfriends?”

“If you want us to be.” He replied, and Kevin positively _glowed_.

“Yes, please.”

“Then it’s official. You’re my boyfriend, Kevin.”

Kevin shivered, smiling, and nodded. “And you’re _my_ boyfriend, Diego.”

“Sounds nice.” Diego nodded.

“Do you like it?”

Diego grinned, and came to a stop at a red light to look at him.

“I _love_ it.”

Kevin thought he could see a haze of yellow all over his vision at how _happy_ he was, at how nothing could get any more _perfect_ than this moment—

When it came all too fast, and neither of them could react soon enough—

All Kevin could hear was the sound of tyres screeching, and Diego’s yell of pain, and Carlos the raccoon’s skittering at his hands, and the sound of bones cracking, and at once Kevin’s mind shut down, as tears streaked down his face.

There was the pitter-patter of water on the roof of the two cars that had crashed into each other, and soon it grew into more, growing in number and sound, and size and intensity, and something happened in Desert Bluffs for the first time ever.

It began to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS
> 
> THEY DID THE THING


	9. Bring Back (Oh, Bring Back My Sunshine to Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wish it would have been me. I wish, I wish—I wish the rain would just stop.”
> 
> Sniffles are audible.
> 
> “I wish—oh, I wish my sun would come back to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of what I believe to be a three-part direct storyline that won't be defined by timeskips. Enjoy Kevin wrenching his heart out and bonus Cecilos!
> 
> Also, kudos to miss FroYo for that lovely input. It means a great deal to me how much you appreciate my hard work on my baby Diego. I'm working on that fic I promised you on Facebook. It should be out the same day as this chapter. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Now, enjoy!

He had lost his left forearm, his appendix, the anterior lobe of his pancreas (stabbed right through with a pole, apparently), his twelfth cranial nerve, and a pretty large part of his stomach. His legs were singed, the knees down, but it was nothing that Strex couldn’t replace.

He was discharged from the hospital with stitches all over his body, his head spinning with all the drugs pumped into him, and feeling all too tired to even function, let alone move, but he dragged himself down the road, soaking himself to the bones as rain poured down onto him, wetting his hair and plastering it to his face, winds blowing against his shaking, frail body and it felt like ice stabbing into every stitch ruthlessly. He felt like a ragdoll; he was limp, and it felt like the wind could blow him away if he let it.

It was raining, he realised, as he finally made his way to his home, after what felt like years on the road, hands shaking with the cold, tiredness, and drugs pumping through his blood, as he fumbled with his house keys to unlock the door and come inside.

He dropped his keys, and, sighing, he dropped to the floor, on his front porch, numb, hurt, as he slumped back against the door, resting his head on his arms as he curled up on his porch.

He was still crying, no doubt about that, as he felt incomplete— _unfulfilled_. The doctors still haven’t put back that biggest part of him back in yet.

Diego still hadn’t woken up. He had been told it had been roughly 20 hours since the crash, and no one had told him what caused it, and why. It frustrated him, it pained him, it hurt to think he was in the dark about _everything_ , and after what happened before everything, he felt like he had the right to know.

Kevin looked up to the grey sky, and let the rain soak him through, mingling with the tears on his cheeks, biting into his skin with its cold and gentle droplets, and he imagined the blue, blue sky above all the dark clouds, and the sun shining behind all the greyness, still yellow and bright and beautiful.

Kevin could feel bitterness in his mouth, and his heart lodging in his throat as he choked up, sobs finally racking his body as he let himself cry, loudly, his breaths laboured, his gasps pained, like the sound he hears when he hugs people—but at least those weren’t pained gasps of despair. He would give _anything_ to be gasping like _that_ instead of _this_.

He _knew_ the sun was up there, above the dark clouds, in the big, blue sky, and he thought of how beautiful it was.

The dark clouds paled in comparison to how beautiful the sight was, and right then and there, Kevin understood why Diego didn’t like it when it rained. He understood why the warmth of the sun was much, much more welcoming than the cold kiss of the rain.

Because when you’re all alone, the only thing that mattered in your life taken away from you, the rain just reminded you all the more what you had lost.

Shaking, Kevin looked away from the rain, burying his face into his arms, and sobbed.

It was the first time he had felt rain, but Kevin knew what he felt about it.

He hated the rain.

* * *

“Goo—good—good mo—greetings, Desert Bluffs, this is Kevin.”

A sigh escaped parted lips, as outside the walls the thundering of the rain filled the silence of the lonely station.

“It’s raining again today, listeners, and it doesn’t seem like it will stop. The sun won’t shine on us again for a while, I think, not while it doesn’t have anything to shine on. And by anything, I mean any _one_.”

The shuffling of papers barely drowns out the sound of sniffling.

“Listeners, as of today, Di-Dieg—” he takes a deep, shaky breath, “ _Dr. Montez_ is still not awake, and doctors from the Desert Bluffs General Hospital still have no idea when he will awake.

“It’s been a week, Desert Bluffs, since the accident, and I’ve been _fine_. My stitches have all healed, and it is like I am good as new—of course, that couldn’t have been done without StrexCorp’s brand new line of medicine. I—I cannot say the same for Diego… But, oh, how I wish I could.

“I wish it would have been me. I wish, I wish—I wish the rain would just _stop_.”

Sniffles are audible.

“I wish—oh, I wish my sun would come back to me.”

* * *

“It’s been a _week_ , why hasn’t Diego answered my calls?” Carlos mumbled to himself, hurriedly taking photos of the Geiger counter to take note of their readings. “Usually, he’d run into problems, but this is _ridiculous_ ,” he half-whined, frowning as he tried to make sense of the oscillating numbers on the reader. “This isn’t like him.”

“Who?”

Two arms wrap around Carlos’ waist, and his eyes widen in surprise, before his expression melted into fond exasperation.

“Cecil, hi.” He greeted, turning around to face his lover, who smiled at him and gave him a light kiss on the lips. “What’re you doing here today?”

“Am I not allowed to visit you?” he asked calmly, peeking at the Geiger counter in Carlos’ hands. “What science are you doing today?” he asked, moving his hands around to lace them in one of Carlos’.

“I’m taking a look at this deer that wandered into town today.” He replied, gesturing at the cage in front of him, where a blank-eyed, four-armed deer stood stock-still, pitch black eyes staring far ahead at something in the nothingness. “It has four forelegs, Cecil. I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the right number deer have for legs.”

The broadcaster raised an eyebrow, and pulled away, shrugging. “Oh, Carlos, deer don’t conform to what mere humans set standards for it, they—” he fell silent upon finally looking at the deer properly, and a scowl replaced Cecil’s sweet smile as Carlos saw his teeth sharpen, and the slit on his forehead part slightly to reveal a fuming third eye.

“Cecil? Cecil, what’s wrong?”

“Get that deer out of here _right now_ , Carlos,” Cecil growled, his voice slipping lower, as Carlos felt nails sharpening, lightly digging into the palm of his hand. “That deer doesn’t belong here, it needs to go. _Burn_ it!”

“Cecil, what’s the mat— _ow_!”

Cecil’s nails had dug a little too hard at Carlos’ palm, cutting crescent-moon wounds and drawing blood. Cecil immediately snapped out of his trance, his eyes widening as he grabbed Carlos’ hand, panicked.

“Oh, Carlos, I’m so, so sorry!” he gasped, lifting the injured hand, shock clear on his face, but Carlos shook his head, smiling at his boyfriend.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. What’s the matter with you, Cecil? What’s wrong with this deer?” he asked, and Cecil scowled, turning away to look away from the deer.

“That came from Desert Bluffs, Carlos. Put it away _now_ , or I’ll do it myself.”

“Whoa, whoa, Cecil, calm down,” Carlos spoke up, gently squeezing Cecil’s shoulders, ushering him away from his work area downstairs to the living room, where he sat his boyfriend down. “I’ll take care of it when I can, okay?” he smiled, settling down next to Cecil on the couch, the broadcaster pouting up at him, but eventually relenting, sighing as he leant against him.

After a long moment of comfortable silence, Carlos spoke up, rubbing his thumb lovingly on Cecil’s knuckles. “So, what’d you come over for, Cecil? Don’t you have your show in a little while?”

“In a while,” Cecil replied dismissively, hugging Carlos’ arm, and the scientist looked up at the watch on the wall to see the second hand had completely stopped. Chuckling, Carlos sighed fondly and kissed his boyfriend’s hair.

“What do you want to do in that while, exactly?”

Cecil looked up at him, and a smirk curled his lips, as he sat up and straddled his boyfriend’s waist.

“What do you _think_ I’d like to do, Carlos?” he asked, rolling the man’s name on his tongue like candy, and Carlos felt a shiver of arousal go down his spine.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, resting his hands on Cecil’s waist, admiring how his hands starkly differed from Cecil’s pristine white polo, and he felt Cecil’s hand, still sharply-clawed and cooler than usual, grasp his chin and made his head look up, right into Cecil’s eyes—all three of them. “I’m not psychic—why don’t you show me?”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Cecil purred, before leaning in and pressing their lips together.

* * *

Carlos woke up to the sound of Cecil’s voice speaking, and blinking, bleary-eyed, he sat up in bed, and realised that Cecil had put the radio on his bedside table for him to hear his broadcast as he did it. Chuckling, Carlos rested his back on the headboard of his bed, sighing in contentment as he listened to Cecil’s sonorous voice on the radio.

“ _And now, a public service announcement from the Night Vale Social Services Committee: listeners, when was the last time_ you _met up with family? Have you been participating in council-mandated family reunions every decade?_ ”

At this Carlos paused, the thought of Diego coming to mind, and he realised that maybe he should resort to other means of knowing what happened to him. He stole a glance at the radio, and sheepishness washed over him.

“Sorry, Cecil,” he spoke out loud, apologetic. “Gotta find out what happened to Diego.”

He reached for the knob and tuned into the DBCR broadcast.

“ _It’s raining again today, listeners, and it doesn’t seem like it will stop._ ” Carlos raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the radio. Kevin didn’t sound as peppy as he usually did. How strange. “ _The sun won’t shine on us again for a while, I think, not while it doesn’t have anything to shine on. And by anything, I mean any_ one _._ ”

Whoa, okay, Kevin sounded _completely_ different. This was getting strange—and Desert Bluffs is a _desert_ , why would it be _raining_?

“ _Listeners, as of today, Di-dieg—_ ” Stammering over Diego’s name, at least that was normal, Carlos nodded. “Dr. Montez _,_ ” Carlos’ eyes widened. Now _that_ was something he didn’t expect to hear from Kevin. “ _Is still not awake, and the doctors from the Desert Bluffs General Hospital still have no idea when he will awake_.”

Oh, _God_. Carlos gaped at the radio, his eyes wide. Diego, he…? Impossible!

“ _It’s been a week, Desert Bluffs, since the accident, and I’ve been_ fine.”

Accident? What accident? Carlos’ head was spinning—this was his _cousin_ , the boy he grew up with as his brother, accidents just don’t _happen_ to family! They don’t—

His hands itching to get any semblance of reassurance, he got out of bed, hurriedly getting dressed, ready to head into his car, when he stopped in the middle of slamming his foot down on the acceleration.

He had tried doing this before, he realised, and last time, the results weren’t the most productive.

He had a little bicker with Cecil, nothing too serious, about mountains. Exasperated, he decided to drive away from Night Vale, just to head to the nearest mountain (in the haze of his annoyance he failed to realise there weren’t any mountains in the desert), only to find that no matter how long he drove past Night Vale’s border, he never got past a mile away from the town.

It was a Moebius loop he was in, he knew it, but he had no idea how he got into one—he was _sure_ that wasn’t there before, when he first came to Night Vale. Stunned into clearing his mind, Carlos calmed down and turned the car around to drive back to Night Vale, where, sure enough, Cecil stood at the border, leaning on a lamp post, arms crossed and a petulant pout on his lips.

“Was it you who did that?” was the first thing out of his mouth when he came out the door, but Cecil came up to him and pressed their lips together.

“I’m sorry I made you mad.” He said instead, and Carlos smiled into their kiss and forgave him.

Now, sitting in his car, Carlos was at a loss. How was he going to get to Desert Bluffs like this? He couldn’t just charge at the border—Cecil would _never_ let him leave without his approval, especially when armoured men from Strex would attempt to enter Night Vale to take his life, only to get killed by some form of dark entity that Carlos was sure had to come only from Cecil.

“Damn it, Cecil,” Carlos sighed, exasperated, hitting his head on the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn, setting it off. He jolted back in his seat, embarrassed, but he froze when he heard snide laughter from his side, outside the open window of his car. Blinking, he looked outside to see a man in a beanie, white shirt and jeans looking down at him from outside.

“Uh,” Carlos spoke up intelligently, and the man laughed again, holding out his hand.

“Carlsberg.” He said, “I’m _pretty_ sure you’ve heard of me."

“Oh, yeah,” Carlos nodded, hurriedly reaching out to shake the man’s hand, “Steve Carlsberg.”

“Funny how Cecil hasn’t brainwashed you into mindlessly hating me.” He smirked, and Carlos frowned at him.

“Okay, look, Cecil’s trash-talk about you is his own business, and sometimes, I wish he wouldn’t do that, but he does _not_ brainwash people.” He frowned, getting out of his car to talk to the man properly.

“Explain Telley the Barber.” Steve simply said, and Carlos fell silent. He _knew_ it was about all the supernatural events going on in town, and he knew he would never find out exactly _how_ , but he refused to reply to Steve. “See?” the man smirked anyway, and Carlos almost understood why Cecil hated the guy. “Cecil’s really something, isn’t he?”

“Sure.” Carlos drawled, “Look, I’m in a hurry, and I need to go somewhere, okay?”

“Out of town?” Steve asked, nonchalantly leaning on his car, and Carlos resisted the urge to tell him to get off the car, because that’s where Cecil liked leaning on when they kissed in the radio station’s parking lot.

“Yes.” He bit out instead, and Steve held up his hand, index finger out like a gun, and making a clicking noise, smirking at the mock-shot.

“See? Brainwash.” He said, lowering his hand. “Calm down, Dr. Vasquez.” He got off the side of the car, chuckling. “I know Cecil likes leaning on cars. He does that all the time; especially here on the front door, for some reason.”

“Carls—Mr. Carlsberg, I don’t really have time for this—”

“Running into problems with Cecil? Is he being overbearing?”

“Look, I don’t really mind it when Cecil—”

“Moebius loops when you head out of town? Shadow-like abominations murdering people at the border of town?” Steve cut him off, smirking. When Carlos didn’t respond, he continued. “I know what that feels.” He scoffed. “Cecil can be so… choking at times.”

“Now see here, I love Cecil—very much so, and I am _not_ complaining about anything he does. It’s who he is, and it’s part of him that I have to fall in love with, and you have _no right_ to say things like that about him!” Carlos burst out, his hands balled in fists and _shaking_ , and he hadn’t been this angry since… since Diego _changed_. He shook his head, sighing exasperatedly, climbing into his car. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find some way to leave Night Vale to go see my brother.”

He was too angry to even correct himself, jamming the key into the car’s lock, and turning on the engine, when much to his surprise, Steve climbed into the front seat next to him. He opened his mouth to tell him to _get out before I do something I don’t want to_ when he spoke up.

“You need to go to Desert Bluffs, right?” he said, staring right back at him, his eyes dead serious as they stared right back into Carlos’ brown ones.

“Wait, how did you—”

“You need to go see that Dr. Montez?” he asked, and Carlos nodded. For the first time ever, Carlos saw a genuine smile crossing Steve Carlsberg’s face.

“Good. I know how to get you there, and Cecil won’t have to know a thing.”

Carlos’ eyes widened.

“How?”

Steve chuckled, and leant back in the seat— _Cecil_ ’s seat, Carlos realised, and looked ahead.

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

“To where?”

“My place.” Steve replied simply. “Now drive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell I have a thing for Steve Carlsberg, heee.


	10. Wake Me Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could hear, faintly, a voice. It was kind, and warm, and he could vaguely see light through his closed eyes, red pigmentation of his blood through the skin of his eyelids showing up in the face of the light, and he knew it was his way out.
> 
> But he was so calm. He was so rested. 
> 
> Still, a scientist is curious. It was the third thing a scientist was, and the only way to satisfy his curiosity was to open his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Righto, looooots of headcanons and KIND STEVE????????? in this chapter. 
> 
> Hi, AO3, how's it been? I just finished (not really) my finals week so I'm free to write again uwu 
> 
> This fic is the first of many I'm going to write this sem break, so watch out for an event I'm going to pull on [my blog](bukkun.tumblr.com)! 
> 
> Another announcement! I've borrowed an OC from my dear friend [parallelanprincess](http://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelanprincess/pseuds/parallelanprincess)! It's Ricky, from her series [Greetings, From Desert Bluffs](http://archiveofourown.org/series/54874). I've taken the liberty of amping it up for Ricky because he be such bad man he deserves all the glitz and glam of corporate life uwu
> 
> Aanyway, I hope you enjoy him here, parallelanprincess! I hope I did him justice. uwu ~~he'll be popping up much more a little later i hope you don't mind that uwu~~
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: GODDAMNIT EPISODE 33

The car ride was stiff, and silent, save for Steve speaking up when Carlos needed to make a turn. They made it to Steve’s apartment—funnily, not too far away from _Cecil_ ’s, and Carlos pointedly kept that thought to himself.

“You look like you’re itching to ask questions.” Steve said, when he let Carlos in.

“What is all this to you?” Carlos immediately said, and he only half-regretted it.

Steve laughed, a sad sort of laugh, as he gestured at the sofa. “Sit down, I’ll get you a drink.”

“You didn’t answer the question.” Carlos said instead, but he sat down on the man’s couch. “What do you have to gain from all of this?”

“Look, I don’t always have anything to gain when I want to help someone who needs to see their family.” Steve sighed, one arm akimbo as he picked up two glasses from his shelf. “I have family outside Night Vale, too, okay, I know how you feel.”

“Wait, what?” Carlos blinked, watching Steve set the glasses down in front of him. “You’re not from here?”

“No. I’m not. I’m a lot like you, actually.” Steve shook his head, “Do you want water, or gin?”

Carlos paused, and he grinned sheepishly. Steve laughed. “Gin. Got it,” he nodded, getting up to get some ice and the drink. “I was the last outsider Night Vale had—‘bout fifteen years ago.”

Carlos watched him pour him a drink, nodding, sombre. Steve gave him a look, before taking a drink from his own glass as he sat down in the armchair across him. “You’re wondering about my deal with Cecil, aren’t you?”

Carlos nodded, and Steve laughed. “You are _not_ going to believe this.”

“I’m a scientist in Night Vale. Try me.”

“I’m a photojournalist for the _Night Vale Daily Journal_. Try _me_.”

Carlos shrugged, and Steve smirked, “I used to be ‘Perfect Steve the Journalist’.”

Carlos’ jaw dropped, and Steve laughed. “Yeah. It was a thing, I guess.” He sighed, slumping back in his seat. “How Cecil loved… it was really something else, and to be frank with you, I really enjoyed the time I was with Cecil.” He took a sip of his drink, and Carlos did the same. “That dog in his apartment?” Carlos nodded, “I gave that to him.”

“Oh.” Carlos leant back in his own seat, morose as he looked down at the dark liquid in the cup in his hands.

“Shocked?”

“A bit? I don’t know. Somehow I’m not surprised.” Carlos shrugged. “What happened?”

“We had a fight. Things happened. I said things I shouldn’t have.” Steve shrugged, “The usual, I think. Cecil probably didn’t take to that very well.”

“ _Probably_?” Carlos chuckled, and Steve laughed.

“Oh, you’d know. I’m surprised he didn’t leave you when you tried driving out of town.”

“Yeah, well… it was a stupid argument—wait, how did you even know that?”

“What, the Moebius loops? I got into one once when I was trying to play hide and seek with—”

“No, the fact I drove out of town—and the Strex people getting killed outside town?”

“Ha, so they _were_ from Strex. I _knew_ I recognised their uniforms.” Steve grinned, “But as for your question, I keep tabs on everyone in town. Especially you—you’re the last outsider Night Vale’s had for a while, and it’s pretty difficult to _not_ get you into trouble. You’re a scientist, even.”

Carlos frowned, and leant back. “So, if you had a thing with Cecil before, why are you helping _me_ , of all people?”

Steve’s smile turned sad. “You make him happy.”

Carlos’ eyes widened, as the man stood up. “Also, I happen to be the only person with access to Desert Bluffs without Cecil’s knowledge. Come on down to my basement, it’s there.”

“What is it?” Carlos asked, getting up and following after the man to his basement, where he saw a set of curtains covering something at the far end of the empty basement.

“It’s a portal to Desert Bluffs.” Steve replied, grinning, and clearly proud of himself, pulling aside the curtains to reveal a swirling black vortex in his wall. Carlos’ eyes widened in awe as he approached the portal. “It appeared there the day Cecil and I broke up. I think he wants me to go to Desert Bluffs and stay there, probably. Don’t like it there, though.”

“I’d imagine. Diego likes it there,” Carlos replied absentmindedly, and Steve hummed.

“Is that your brother’s name? Diego Montez?”

“Broth—ah, yeah,” Carlos smiled, chuckling. “He’s a biomedical engineer.” He replied, “He _made_ Kevin, you know, the radio host of DBCR?”

“Wait, what?” Steve blinked, “Are you telling me Strex isn’t just an omnipresent company that runs everything? Like how the Secret Police are and everything?” he hissed, lowering his voice, and Carlos realised what he had just said. “Tell me _everything_ —is Desert Bluffs even _real_?”

Carlos froze. He had completely forgotten Desert Bluffs was a company secret—that it was an experiment based on collaboration with the government and StrexCorp, and that he really shouldn’t have told someone like a _photojournalist_ what he just said.

“Carlos!” Steve pressed, shaking his shoulders. “What else is there to Desert Bluffs?”

But then, Carlos realised, he didn’t work for StrexCorp anymore. He realised that when he almost died in that pin retrieval lane, when he put his hand on Cecil’s knee and allowed the broadcaster to rest his head on his shoulder, when he called Cecil for ‘personal reasons’, and when he finally kissed him for the very first time.

He was a free scientist—he owed Night Vale something, and the least he could give it was the truth.

“StrexCorp created Desert Bluffs—all the inhabitants, in an attempt to create a replication of Night Vale, in order to understand, and possibly harness, the impossible energy Night Vale is capable of creating for whatever reason the highest bidder for the research and technology wants.” Carlos rambled, and Steve listened on, in rapt attention. “Diego was part of the bio team—they created the inhabitants to the frame of Night Vale, and they developed the drugs that would keep these unstable organisms steady. They, uh, they made them for any viable form of human testing breeding, or creation of supermedicine, or the most efficient soldier and weapon humanity needs.”

“Oh, God. This is gold,” Steve breathed, and Carlos realised he had his phone out, the recorder running, and for some reason his tongue ran on.

“The most important project Strex is working on, though, is the replication of Subject 34—uh, Cecil Palmer. There’s a running hypothesis that the moment full replication occurs, the town can actually be capable of reproducing any supernatural happening in this town, allowing controlled studies and extraction of whatever energy we could harness.”

He paused, his tone turning sombre.

“I… I was the one who proposed this hypothesis.”

Steve gaped at him, and he held his hands up defensively.

“Look, at the time I used to work for Strex, okay? Not anymore—I haven’t been reporting in since, well…” he shrugged helplessly, “Since I hooked up with Cecil.”

Steve blinked at him, before smiling. “Cecil has that effect on people, doesn’t he?” he chuckled, “He’s a heartworm.”

“Tunic and furry pants on date night?” Carlos laughed, “Yeah, definitely a heartworm.”

The two shared a moment to laugh warmly, before Steve left for a moment to pull along with him a large wheel with clear string wound around it for several feet, as well as a slim rope harness. Carlos’ smile fell off his face when he saw it, and he stared at the journalist.

“What is that?” he asked, and Steve patted the wheel.

“It’s a harness-pulley system.” He replied simply, “It’ll help me pull you out of Desert Bluffs quickly. The rope is made of piano string, so you can use it as a weapon—”

“Hold on, as a _weapon_?” Carlos cut him off, incredulous, and Steve nodded, shrugging.

“The people in Desert Bluffs aren’t really the… softest-handed people out there,” he said, “Got a nasty gash down my leg from someone who tried to ‘hug’ me when I visited the town. Had to make do and improvise with the rope.” He laughed, “That’s where I figured out how well it could cut through human flesh.”

Carlos blinked at him. “I see you’re quite naturalised to Night Vale.” He opted to say, and Steve shrugged.

“You kinda have to, if you want to stay alive here. I mean, you know what I’m talking about, right?” he asked, “Y’know, the sandstorm-kill-your-double thing?”

“God, Steve, even _that_ you know about?” he breathed, shaking his head. “You are _really_ good at your job.”

The man grinned, and gestured at the wheel, “So, you want to head in now, or are you going to get something first, like a weapon?”

“I’ll just go get my umbrella.” Carlos replied, “It’s in my car.”

“Your… umbrella.” Steve echoed, sceptical, but Carlos grinned.

“My _dangerous_ umbrella.” He said, “Surely you know _which_ one.”

“… _Oh_.”

* * *

“And now an update on traffic. The road right in front of the Desert Bluffs General Hospital is jammed just a bit, because of a growing crowd of people outside the front doors.

“When armed masked officers demanded them to explain themselves, none of the townspeople gathered at the gates could say a thing. All of them simply stood there, staring out into space with soulless eyes, and gaping mouths, and teary eyes, all seemingly waiting for _something_ to happen inside the building.

“I myself want to be there too, Desert Bluffs, I want to be in the Desert Bluffs General Hospital, standing by Diego’s bed, waiting for him to open his eyes, to wake up, to tell me that he is _okay_ —but then who would be here to talk to you kindly? Whose voice would be here to guide you like headlights in a low-visibility storm?

“Reports are in that a Rolls-Royce has driven up to the local StrexCorp distribution centre. No one has ever seen this kind of car before—if it even _is_ a car, but Intern Abrams tells me that the driver of the car was a man—tall, in a suit, with a strong jaw and an even stronger voice. Intern Abrams had told me all this all the while swooning, and with light giggling he also told me that the man looked very _handsome_.

“Desert Bluffs, I can’t say such a thing for certain, but I _can_ say that my boyfriend is also very handsome too—he’s much more handsome when his eyes—blue, blue, so very _blue_ —are open, and his skin—warm, dark and so very lovely—is pressed against mine.

“Oh, Intern Abrams just passed me a card, covered in kiss-marks and smelling faintly of men’s perfume—the expensive kind. It reads:

“ _StrexCorp Synernists, Inc.—Chief Executive Officer, Ricardo Araya_.”

* * *

“ _Hijo de puta_.”

“Mr. Araya? The scientists are here.”

“They should have been here _ten minutes ago_ ,” the man snapped at the assistant, who shied away from him, embarrassed, but still waved at masked armed men, who shoved into the room two scientists handcuffed to each other and looking worse for wear. Their clothes were still singed slightly from the car crash they caused and none of their—unfortunately minor—wounds were treated since the accident. The CEO smirked slightly when he saw flesh turning dark around the edges of wounds.

“Sorry, sir,” the assistant squeaked, before hurrying out the door at the dismissive wave of the man’s hand. The two armed men left as well, leaving Ricardo with his secretary, who stood at the doorway, eyes trained on her phone, typing away continuously.

“Athena.” He spoke up, pulling into his back pocket to take out his gun, “How much time do I have allotted here?”

The olive-skinned assistant looked up momentarily from her phone and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Thirty minutes, sir. I took the liberty of relocating the time slot for your meeting to a cancelled appointment tomorrow.”

Ricardo Araya smirked, slipping in a brand-new Strex brand magazine into his handgun, eyeing the two scientists staring at him in shock and quaking in fear at the corner of the stark white room they were in.

“Good. Remind me about your raise later this evening.”

“Yes, sir.” His secretary nodded, before turning her attention back to typing on her phone, as the world faded into background noise of gunfire, screams and the amused chuckling of her employer, who did so very much love taking his frustrations out on disposable little employees like the two scientists he was using as both target practice and punching bags.

* * *

“So, Carlos, you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” Carlos laughed weakly, holding in his hands the Strex-issued umbrella he used to kill his double. “Uh, how do I get back anyway?”

“Just tug on the rope, three times. I’ll pull you back as best as I can.” Steve replied.

“Cecil won’t find out about this?” he asked, and the man nodded, before shrugging after a moment’s hesitation.

“Well, as far as I know, he doesn’t turn his eye this way any more,” Steve replied, and Carlos couldn’t help but pity the guy. “Hey, no pouting here, it’s no big deal.” Steve chuckled, “Just get in there, see Diego and get back. It’ll be like nothing happened—and really, nothing _does_ happen, seeing as time here in Night Vale doesn’t really go the same way as in Desert Bluffs.”

Carlos chuckled. “You got that right.” He nodded, before turning to face the portal. “Well, here I go.”

He stepped into the portal, and it felt like a cold wind passed over him, caressing his skin like a cold, heavy hand as he entered the town not too far from where he once stood.

* * *

“Oh? L-listeners, I’m sorry to interrupt between broadcasts, as my time to speak really isn’t now, but—Desert Bluffs, my head is starting to hurt, and I cannot ever figure out _why_. There is a splitting sensation in the middle of my forehead—like something is cutting it in two, a horizontal line right across my forehead, where Diego would kiss chastely when we sit together under the sun and eat lunch together.

“Something is happening in Desert Bluffs, listeners, and I’m not quite sure _what_. I—I’m worried. I want to see Diego, listeners.

“Please pray for him, as I cannot do that myself right now, because— _ow, oww_!—m-my head is splitting and—and, _oh_ …

“Please, if any of you know how to alleviate head pain, or altogether remove the sensation, drop me a tweet or write on my wall on Facebook.

“I-I apologise, listeners, for interrupting the broadcast. I return you now to the regularly scheduled broadcast of hypnotic subliminal messaging underlying our most popular noontime radio drama, _Paper Triangles_.”

* * *

He was dreaming, he knew, because he was so much younger than he usually was—he still wore his undergrad turtlenecks, he still had the Strex ID slung over his neck, he still had his arms and legs intact.

He stood in a long, dark corridor, he knew, and his hands were in contact with something smooth, and cool, and familiar, and the sound of beeping and bubbling water filled his ears.

He knew he was dreaming, because he was still so calm.

He could hear, faintly, a voice. It was kind, and warm, and he could vaguely see light through his closed eyes, red pigmentation of his blood through the skin of his eyelids showing up in the face of the light, and he knew it was his way out.

But he was _so_ calm. He was so rested.

Still, a scientist is curious. It was the third thing a scientist was, and the only way to satisfy his curiosity was to open his eyes.

Still knowing he was dreaming, still in a dream, living a dream, Diego Montez opened his eyes to come face-to-face with a sleeping man—or at least, a half-formed man—in a large cylinder of fluid and wires and chemicals.

He knew who it was, and he realised he knew what voice he was hearing.

“Kevin,” he simply said, his hands splaying out on the glass before him. “Kevin.”

He couldn’t understand what he could hear Kevin was saying, but the half-formed human in the cylinder comforted him, as a little smile crossed his face.

“Please, Kevin.” He murmured. “Wake me up.”

He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled from his throat, lightweight, dreamy, as little bubbles of yellow and green and iridescent glowing colours escaped his mouth.

“Wake me up. I need to see you again.”


	11. Sugar, We're Going Down/Can't You See Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked strange the way he was right now—lifeless, peaceful, hooked up to an IV, and completely still. His skin had gotten a little paler since the last time he saw him, and his body was a little smaller—a side-effect from being stagnant and comatose in a hospital, he supposed, as Carlos approached the side of his bed, gingerly slipping his hand into Diego’s, sighing.
> 
> “Bebé mapache.” He murmured, “What did you get yourself into this time?” a soft, sad laugh escaped his lips and he squeezed Diego’s hand. “You big dummy.” He sighed, before crossing his arms on the bed and laying his head there, taking a deep breath and smelling the hospital, the sterile sheets, antiseptic, and all the other things that reminded Carlos of neither home nor his life then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Fall Out Boy's [Sugar, We're Going Down](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhG-vLZrb-g), and Attention's [Can't You See Me?](http://attention.bandcamp.com/track/cant-you-see-me) Two amazingly painful songs, and you guys should go check Attention out, if you haven't already!
> 
> Sooo, it's been a while since we last saw Diego, and he's still not awake. Also, apparently, this isn't a three-part story section. It's in five parts (including the intermission, anyway). Now, I wonder [where did I pull that stunt before...?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/913428)
> 
> Anyway, I'm a little busy lately, since I'm doing a NaNoWriMo novel! Whee! You can monitor my progress and take a look at my novel on my page [here](http://nanowrimo.org/participants/amethyst_li/novels/long-may-i-reign). Hope this interests you, and I hope I can make it! ;u;
> 
> Now, because of this, updates are gonna be slow. Sorry. I'll try updating when I can.
> 
> For now, enjoy!

Carlos stepped out of the portal to find himself in an empty basement, devoid of light, and only partially—dimly—lit up by the portal he had just stepped through. Blinking, he frowned and pulled his Strex umbrella up defensively as he pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight and casting light over the area around him—

He let out a gasp as he saw red, fresh, squelchy viscera and blood littering the floor. There were bones, with muscles sinewy and reddened and soft, scattered at the corner of the basement, and he could see eyes and bits of brain not too far away from his feet.

He shuddered, and he swept the light around the basement to look for the stairs—a few yards away from him. He frowned; if _this_ was what Desert Bluffs was like, he could hardly imagine what it must look like outside.

He quietly climbed up the stairs and pushed the door open to find himself in a house filled with—surprise, surprise—viscera and blood, and wait, is that _human skin_ on the walls as wallpaper?

Recoiling sharply, Carlos stayed away from the walls, grossed out. No wonder Cecil was so shaken with how Desert Bluffs looked. He wasn’t so sure he liked it here either.

“Oh, hello!” he heard a voice behind him and his eyes widened.

Oh, _God_.

He turned around he saw a man with black sclera and white eyes smiling at him brightly through teeth covered in blood and lips dripping with spittle and blood. In the man’s hands— _claws_ , rather, was a child’s hand, still dripping with oddly viscous blood, landing with wet-sounding _squelch_ es on the ground.

“I didn’t know I had a visitor over.” He said cheerfully, raising his sharp-nailed hands, still dripping and bloody, dropping the hand to the ground. “C’mon, let me give you a hug, stranger!”

“I-I’m fine,” Carlos declined, inching away from the man, his eyes darting around as he frantically searched for the door out. “I’ll just, uh, show myself out.”

“Oh, nonsense! Come on, just one hug!” the man suddenly lunged at him, claws aiming right at his neck, and Carlos’ eyes widened as he sidestepped to dodge the man, as he scrambled to tug at the handle of the Strex umbrella he was holding.

He remembered what Steve had told him before he left—“ _Seriously incapacitate everyone who tries to hug you. They’ll appreciate it_.”

He let out a curse in Spanish when the blade in the handle got caught as he saw the man lunge in his direction clumsily. Gritting his teeth, Carlos reached for the string attached to his harness and quickly darted around the man, before tugging on the string, once, _hard_.

He hissed as he felt the string cut into his palm but his eyes widened when he saw it slice right through the muscle of the man’s shanks, left and right, sending him crashing down to the floor, giving Carlos enough time to tug the string free, and pull away from the man.

“Aren’t you a sweet guy?” the man laughed, “Alright, I better not keep you long. Go on, the door’s out that way!” he pointed at the hallway behind the scientist. “Hope you have a nice one, and it’s a good thing you have an umbrella—it hasn’t stopped raining since Kevin’s boyfriend got into an accident!”

“Boyfriend?” Carlos asked, and the man nodded from where he was lying down on the floor.

“Dr. Montez, from Strex,” he said. “Nice guy,” he smiled brightly, and Carlos wished he could believe what the man was saying.

“Right, uh,” he awkwardly gestured at the door, “I’d better go.”

“Right. Take care!”

Carlos shook his head fondly as he walked out the door and into the streets, closing the door behind him. So the perception filter Diego’s team was working on worked, and it worked _well_. Wow.

He shook his head, and took a look around—there were half-dead bodies in the middle of the street, guts hanging from streetlamps, and the road was oddly cleaner than he expected it to be—but that could be just the rain pouring down on the town like a storm.

He unclasped the umbrella’s hood and let it up, carefully holding onto the safety latch to keep the blade inside the handle and stalk from springing out, before stepping out into the rain.

“Excuse me,” he spoke up when a relatively normal-looking (they were, most importantly, _intact_ , and they were dressed properly, sans of course the bloodstains on their clothes) “How do I get to the General Hospital?”

The woman he spoke to only stared ahead, mouth hanging open and her eyes were welling with tears as he walked right past him, leaving him frowning and confused as he watched where she walked—slowly, and a half-smile spread across his face when he saw a tall, white building with half-rusted metal wording on top of its roof—

_DESERT_ _BLUFFS GENERAL HOSPITAL_

“Diego.” He breathed, softly, and nodding resolutely to himself, he made his way to the hospital, only to pause when he saw the masked men standing outside the front door, guns trained at the crowed of people just standing around the entrance, moaning lowly and crying, but doing nothing else.

Carlos peered at the men at the door, and frowned. “Okay… other way,” he murmured, closing his umbrella, and ducking into the alley next to the hospital.

* * *

Every hospital had a back door; Carlos had reasoned at the time when his feet were still firmly planted on the ground, but now, several feet in the air, hanging off drain pipes, he grumbled to himself at how _stupid_ he was for assuming that when he had managed to creep around the back of the hospital. Now there were guards blocking his way back, forcing him to go the other only way—up.

He clambered up pipes, holding on steadfastly to the pole and grateful for his extra strength, but completely the opposite at his poor judgement.

Grimly, he realised he didn’t even know where Diego’s room was.

Balancing himself carefully on one arm and a foot stuck into the support holding the pipe to the wall, he pulled out a mobile radio and tuned in to DBCR.

“ _This message was brought to you by TopatoCo._

 _Listeners, just another reminder before another half-hour of finance reports read out loud, I’d like to throw in another reminder. Diego is in the second-floor street-view room, as where all Strex-important people are held when they need it. Listen—_ ”

Carlos didn’t have time to listen to the rest, not when he realised he was at the second window up the building, and he could faintly hear the sound of Kevin’s voice speaking, muffled, from a nearby window.

His eyes widened and he rushed to get a closer look at the window.

He swore he felt his heart skip a beat, but he did know all this shit he was going through was all so _worth_ it—

“Diego.” He smiled, relieved, before making a move to slide open the window, surprised it was unlocked. He stepped into the room, quietly, as if making too much noise would rouse his cousin.

He looked strange the way he was right now—lifeless, peaceful, hooked up to an IV, and completely still. His skin had gotten a little paler since the last time he saw him, and his body was a little smaller—a side-effect from being stagnant and comatose in a hospital, he supposed, as Carlos approached the side of his bed, gingerly slipping his hand into Diego’s, sighing.

“ _Bebé mapache_.” He murmured, “What did you get yourself into this time?” a soft, sad laugh escaped his lips and he squeezed Diego’s hand. “You big dummy.” He sighed, before crossing his arms on the bed and laying his head there, taking a deep breath and smelling the hospital, the sterile sheets, antiseptic, and all the other things that reminded Carlos of neither home nor his life then.

With a sigh, Carlos let his eyes slip closed, and he fell asleep to the sound of the heart monitor’s steady beeping, and the steady rise and fall of Diego’s chest.

* * *

“Sir? He’s here. D-do-Dr. Vasquez is in the hospital.”

A smile split across the darkness.

“ _Good_.”

* * *

Steve hadn’t been sitting around at the wheel for a long while when he heard the sound of slamming car doors outside his house. Briefly he looked up from his phone (where he was busy watching random acapella covers on YouTube) to look up the staircase to his living room, and shrugged. Must be the neighbours—

“Steve Carlsberg!” he heard a familiar voice growling outside, and his eyes widened.

Guess not.

Shoving his phone into his pocket, he made a move to stand up—only to find himself intercepted by a _very_ angry- looking Cecil, eyes—all three of them—wide open and burning with a rage he hadn’t seen for a while now.

The sight was rather nostalgic, in hindsight. Steve pointedly ignored the twinge in his chest.

“Hi, Cecil.” He tried to say casually instead, even as wisps of black smoke snaking out from behind Cecil manifested into tentacles, one grabbing Steve by the collar, pulling him close to Cecil’s scowling face.

“Where is he?” Cecil growled, and Steve could hear the monster inside the radio host manifesting, his voice layered with that unmistakable sound of a growl of something _dark_ that was growing in him.

“Who?” he dared asking.

“Carlos!” Cecil hissed, tossing Steve aside slightly, knocking him off-balance, but the throw wasn’t strong enough to knock him off his feet. Steve stumbled, but caught himself, and he smiled slightly. Cecil was mad, yes—but he still _cared_.

That little spark in him couldn’t help but ignite a little.

“Oh, he’s, uh…”

“Don’t lie to me, Carlsberg, or I _swear_ —”

“I helped him get to Desert Bluffs.” Steve cut him off, “He needed to see his brother, and I decided to help him.”

“You _what_?”  Cecil shrieked at him, almost inhumanly now, and Steve resisted the urge to wince. “Those people in that town are after him! They are going to kill him!”

“Don’t you think he _knows_?” Steve was almost shocked to hear himself yelling back, and even Cecil hesitated for a moment, human features slightly peeking through monstrous eyes and dribbling darkness and shapeless shadows. “For Christ’s sake, Cecil, he needs to see his _brother_ , who’s in a coma after a car accident!” he threw his hands up, but then he paused, and shook his head. “I just—Cecil. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but what the _fuck_ ,” Cecil pulled a face (well, Steve _assumed_ he was, it was difficult to tell when you were staring at an Eldritch abomination) “Carlos worked for StrexCorp, he was cleared for operations here, he can take care of himself.” He continued to say, and at this Cecil’s eyes—all of them, all thirty-odd of them—widened. “He was here because of Strex, Cecil, and it’s going to be _because_ of Strex he’ll make it back.”

Silence lapsed over the two of them, and Steve was almost starting to regret the fact he told Cecil Carlos’ secret, when the blob of otherworldly being morphed back into the human that Steve was used to seeing when he met Cecil.

 _The human he had fallen in love with_ , his mind had whispered to him, but he ignored it.

“Cecil?” he ventured, but he received no reply. Instead Cecil walked past him, brushing his arm not-at-all gently, but not roughly either, and it was like as if they were young again, like Steve was only a bright-eyed fresh graduate again, and Cecil was in the search for true love.

He froze, and Cecil looked at him over his shoulder. Their eyes met, and he could see a strange sort of sadness in the broadcaster’s eyes.

Steve felt his heart stop.

Cecil _knew_. He always knew.

“I’m sorry, Steve.” He barely heard him say, and he could see a whole old world again—back when all he could see was pink and love and happiness, and a smile that lit up his day, as they lay down in the grass next to the NVCR Intern mausoleum, hand in hand, talking about nothing and everything, as all the words that slipped from Steve’s mouth were all the things he knew Cecil wanted to hear.

All of it disappeared when he snapped out of his trance as Cecil spoke up properly, and quietly, at some recess of his mind, where what little was left his heart that Cecil still had was, he wished in a tiny voice that it would have lasted longer.

“I’m going to go after him,” Cecil declared. “I-I can’t lose Carlos.”

Blankly, Steve nodded, and behind him, he barely registered the sound of his clock—fake, Night Vale-issued—stop completely at the force of Cecil’s will.

It wasn’t until after Cecil had left when Steve managed to find his voice again.

“… Take care, Cecil.” He murmured, sitting heavily back down on his chair again, sighing as he looked longingly at the portal.

He’d been trying to find so hard to find what little piece of Cecil’s heart was still his, but now he knew he hadn’t any of it left.

All of it was Carlos’ now, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He’d gone down, now. Once still laid over it, still swimming in doubts about it, but now he knew how over he and Cecil were.

Laughing sadly, he covered his eyes with one hand, and leaned back in his chair.

He’d respected that, he really, really did, but it didn’t mean it would hurt any less.

“I can’t lose you either, Cecil…” he sighed past wet fingers and palms and cheeks and eyes, “No matter how hard I try, so goddamnit, be careful, and bring that Carlos back with you in one piece.”


End file.
